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Michelle Williams may be an Emmy nominee<\/a> for her lead role<\/a> in \u201cDying for Sex,\u201d<\/a> but she seems most excited to share the accolades with the other women on the project.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just so proud of all the women<\/i>!\u201d Williams lifts her fists up and shakes them with enthusiasm. She starts to talk about how thrilled she is with the FX series being represented so broadly \u2014 it scored nine nominations, including acting, writing, directing and limited series \u2014 but she cuts herself off again to repeat in her sports announcer voice: \u201cAll the women<\/i>!\u201d<\/p>\n The 44-year-old actor, who is chatting with me on a video call from her upstate New York home, her hair tied back, sporting a massive straw sun hat and denim overalls, will come back to the importance of female friendship again and again in the course of our conversation. It\u2019s what initially drew her to \u201cDying for Sex.\u201d Based on the story of real-life best friends Molly Kochan and Nikki Boyer, who described how they navigated the end of Molly\u2019s life as she died from Stage 4 breast cancer in a hit podcast, the series depicts Molly leaving her husband in order to explore her intimate desires while managing the trauma of childhood sexual abuse.<\/p>\n Williams said she appreciated how the series explores allowing women to experience pleasure without shame. But above all, she was moved by the platonic love story between Nikki and Molly.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to say something about how passionate [nonromantic] love can be between two women. I really wanted to embody that, because for me the women who \u2014 I don\u2019t want to cry,\u201d says Williams, tearing up as she refers to her closest friends, among them actor Busy Philipps. \u201cThose have been the abiding loves of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis relationship goes as deep as any relationship possibly can,\u201d as \u201cDying for Sex\u201d co-writer Kim Rosenstock describes the bond between Molly and Nikki, played in the series by Jenny Slate<\/a>. \u201cLetting somebody into your final moments is this incredible act of trust and love.\u201d<\/p>\n Given that pain and loss are inherent to the story, Williams also was grateful for the project\u2019s \u201cunstoppable sense of humor,\u201d where absurdism and slapstick sit effortlessly alongside fear and grief. Though she often has people telling her she focuses on serious projects, in truth Williams likes to balance out her work between comedy and drama. (She\u2019s set to swing the pendulum back this fall when she stars in an off-Broadway revival of Eugene O\u2019Neill\u2019s \u201cAnna Christie\u201d directed by her husband, \u201cHamilton\u201d Tony winner Thomas Kail.) \u201cI really like to laugh, so I wanted that very, very much,\u201d says Williams. \u201cMy best friend recently lost another of her best friends to cancer, and she would tell me about the conversations they would have cheek to cheek lying in a hospital bed and how in those moments they found the thing to point at and laugh about, so [the series] felt very true to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Williams herself is quick to express a range of emotions, at times shedding tears about people experiencing grief, at others laughing about the diaper changes that have come with welcoming her third child, now 5 months old. At one point I ask her what it was like meeting the other Michelle Williams at \u201cDeath Becomes Her\u201d and she quips, \u201cThat was long awaited \u2014 I don\u2019t know why they were trying to keep us apart.\u201d<\/p>\n