‘Dying For Sex’ Director Shannon Murphy On Balancing Comedy & Tragedy

Shannon Murphy wants to change the conversation about death. “I have been obsessed with death from a young age, and in many ways, this great adventure in which we will all will continue,” says Australian director. “If we start changing the way we are talking about it and we look at how we can direct people through death and their loss without hiding it from society, it may be beautiful.”

This position and its curiosity with the unknown, who drew the famous theater, television and the film for its latest project Death for sexThe new FX series, Ltd., starring Michelle Williams and Jenny Salt.

The eight episodes series, which is launched on Holo in the United States and Disney+ internationally on April 4, is based on the tragic story of Mullah Koshan (Williams), a woman who gets a cancer diagnosis in the fourth stage and decided to leave her wife for 15 years to explore the full offer and complexity of her sexual desires for the first time in her life. Cochsan originally created a podcast with her best friend Nikki Bouer (list), as she accelerated the highlands and declines in her sexual sexual sexual staring at the face in her face. It was eventually released on Wondry in 2020, a year after KoChan's death at the age of 45 with Boir beside her.

The series, which is also starring Jay Dubbas, Rob Dylani and Sisi Speak, written and co -created by Kim Rosenstock (Only murders in the building(Elizabeth Meriwiteh)New girl), Who also act as executives with Murphy.

“I always inspired writing that you feel unusual and incredibly difficult to implement,” Murphy says to the deadline. “When I read the text program for Death for sex What attracted me to it is the wonderful tension between raw feelings and brutal comedy. These differences are very complex from the craft perspective and this is what excites me. ”

Interestingly, it is not the first battle for Murphy to explore death: an advantage for the first time childAnd that I gained the best BAFTA exit in 2021, followed a teenage girl with cancer at the station located in love with the drug addict, which struggled with her parents for the sake of movement.

“There are definitely similar topics between the two,” says Murphy, who made episodes. Eve killed Half a series of historical drama of bad wolf Small girls. “But what I loved in the amazing textual programs Liz and Kim was the spinal nature of some scenes, which always comes from the theater book. They are very bold on how to write the work of the scene and the way they do – they often drop you immediately at the moment.”

Murphy went six episodes of eight episodes (Chris Tig went the second and third episodes), and while admitting that she did not listen at the beginning to the Kokhan Podcast when reading the first text, it was, significantly, a story that was not completely strange for Morphi. Before her birth, her mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at an early age and began her journey to recover and personal discovery.

“My mother was married at that time, and she left her husband, and in a similar way to Mawla, she told him that she did not want to die with him,” Murphy says. “After that, I went to Africa and this exploration for itself really understood when I read this scenario because it spoke with me a lot. I thought this project is really related to who really loves you and how you want to love it when it is allowed to stop lying to everyone.

Therefore, in many ways, Death for sex It is a love speech for my mother's experience to become more than ever before this diagnosis. She has always lived life as if it was her last day – it's unusual. “

From theater to movies and television

Murphy, half Australian and half an American and raised in Hong Kong, describes herself as a “student who taught a lot” who was known from the age of 17 that she wanted to be a manager. The beginnings of her career witnessed directly in the stage of the theater for nearly a decade. It was directed by Thomas Ostremeree in Berlin with his company Schopeon and Kate Blanchett and her husband Andrew Abton gave Murphy for the first time in the main stage in 2010 – Polly Stefhams Tusk tusk – When they were the technical managers of the Sydney Theater Company.

After attending the Berlin Film Festival and “Inspired” from Berlinali's short films, Murphy was keen to extend her work until after theater and went to the cinema school in Australia. “I realized that cinema could be fun as the theater felt for me,” she says.

I worked with the IMOGEN Banks in Australia, which gave it the first TV party to the Australian drama offspring. This offer, which was already a blow below and had a group of working managers and writers, would give Murphy a strong basis. I went to direct many TV series, including Australian drama On the ropesBefore entering the film, the battle with childStarring Ben Mandason, Issa Davis and Elisa Skanlan. This film was first shown at the Venice Film Festival in 2019 and got an eight -minute applause at the festival.

The extended comedy and tragedy

It is an accurate balance of a successful and tragic comic line, and Murphy admits that it is “innately attracted to darkness and pain” while creators were Meriweether and Rosenstock more attracted to comedy. “I could see that sometimes they wanted to stay in the lands of maintaining lighter moments, but although I like people laugh in the most painful situations, my goal is to make sure that there are no clichés and not emotional manipulation – I felt that it was raw and real for me.”

Williams is famous for her dramatic performance, while Slate may be more famous for her comedy performance. with Death for sexBoth actors had to have equal weight in both fields.

“There is incredibly criminal accuracy and emotional clarity that comes with Michelle, but it is very fun at the same time,” Murphy says. “With Jenny, there is a whirlpool of passion ready for surfaces at any moment, and I really enjoyed withdrawing this from her, formulating her and giving her confidence that she is a dramatic actress like a comic actress.

She was the best friend of real life in Molly Nikki, an actress herself, present all over the shooting, but Murphy says she has never interfered. “It was perfect because I was going and talking to her and I would ask if it was a little bit far in terms of reality,” said Murphy. “I know I am creating a fictional version, but I wanted to know that sometimes. She is re -watching versions of her private life while she is playing and losing Molly and we all direct the spirit of Molly and Nikki on the group but I found it comfortable to be there.”

During the past few weeks of Molly's life, Bouer described it as “unlimited from the world” and during this process, Molly began hallucinations and seeing the watches that fly from the walls. In the last episode, Murphy wanted a continuous bullet that visually expressing the Molly experience as she approached death in Hospice.

“I remember I walked on the group for that episode and said to the production designer Michael Baker,” I am very sorry but we will have to push the walls out on each side, and it was like, “it has already been built.” But I knew that we would have to extend to get the right shot.

“We had all these brides on the bots – was honey – a flying penis and all the actors jumping inside and outside the shot, hiding behind the curtains. It was a real show for the theater.”

For Murphy, the experience of working on it Death for sex It is the closest “Auteur” experience on TV. “It is very difficult to speak like the author on the TV,” she says.

Currently, the director says it is a good time for her to stop and return to the movie space. It is currently in the early stages of its next feature, which is currently under rolls.

“I hope people will see this series and feel like they cannot continue to fear the people who love them and stop lying to themselves, which is difficult to do.” “I think many of us hate talking about these conditions, but radical honesty is really scary, and I think that the more we benefit from that, the more we are satisfied with living in our lives.

“I just loved it about Molly. I have reached a place where you can finally ask the things you want, and I like people to reach the point where they die to do so.”