How ‘Dying for Sex’ Writer Kim Rosenstock Gets It Done (original) (raw)

Kim Rosenstock Is a Night Owl

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Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Jason Frank Rothenberg

Kim Rosenstock is an Emmy-nominated writer, producer, and playwright making her co-showrunner debut with FX’s new limited series Dying for Sex. Based on a true story that inspired a Wondery podcast of the same name, the show follows Molly (played by Michelle Williams), a woman diagnosed with breast cancer who embarks on sexual escapades and a mission of self-discovery after ending her marriage.

Rosenstock started writing the pilot during COVID, when she (and everyone else) was reckoning with mortality and the reality that parents can’t protect their kids from the world. While she says parenthood hasn’t changed her writing routine, it has deepened her sense of purpose. “I want to make things that my daughter can watch — at least one day when she’s older — and be proud of and inspired by,” Rosenstock says. “Maybe she’ll learn a little more about me and what I was doing during all those times when I couldn’t be with her, or when I was typing on her floor while she was sleeping.”

Rosenstock previously worked on shows including New Girl, Single Parents, GLOW, and Only Murders in the Building_. Before that, she wrote the play_ Tigers Be Still and created and co-wrote Fly by Night_. She lives in Los Angeles with her daughter and their dog. Here’s how she gets it done._

On how she got started in the industry:
I grew up on Long Island, and when you live on Long Island, you go into the city to see shows. So when I graduated from college, I did an internship at a theater in New York while I was studying for the LSAT. My job was to read play submissions. I started to get so inspired and thought, I could maybe do this. Once I chose that career path, I knew the practical option was to work as a literary manager and a producer. So I worked at a theater called Ars Nova and I read scripts, programmed play readings, curated a reading series, and had a writers’ group. Liz Meriwether, my co-showrunner, was actually in that group. But I wasn’t writing. I didn’t feel like I was good enough.

One day, I was like, I just need to force myself to write one play. I wrote a play called Tigers Be Still, about how depressed I was, actually. That ended up being the play that I submitted for grad-school applications, and I got into Juilliard and Yale. That was this watershed moment of realizing that someone else besides me thought I could do this. I went to grad school for three years, and I wrote a ton of plays, but it took a long time before I would even say I was a writer and not feel like a total fraud.

On her morning routine:
On the days that my daughter is here, I get up with her, usually around 6:30/7 a.m. I give her breakfast and I drink coffee. I put her things in her backpack, and then we get in the car and drive to school. Right now, she’s in a real Selena Gomez phase, so we listen to a lot of Selena on the way to school, and it’s delightful. I don’t eat breakfast. I know I should. I just drink a lot of coffee and eventually some water. On the days when my daughter is not with me, I usually wake up around 8:30 or 9.

On how her relationship with her daughter inspired the mother-daughter dynamic in Dying for Sex:
A couple of years ago, I took my daughter to see Barbie. She loved it, but she didn’t understand any of the patriarchy stuff. She’s like, But women do everything! She didn’t understand any of the irony or satirical elements of it, because she doesn’t really understand anything about how the world works, the gender politics or sexism, misogyny. I remember thinking, This is so beautiful, but oh my God, when is this all going to hit her? The mother-daughter relationship in the show is a very extreme version of this thing that happens to all parents, where you just feel at a certain point like you can’t protect your kids and you have to think about what you’re going to do when life happens. How do you show up for your kids on their terms? Love isn’t just doing what you think is best for someone, whether or not they want it. It’s learning how they want to be loved and loving them that way.

On how her relationship to work has changed since becoming a parent:
Being a parent has not changed the rhythm of how my brain and body want to write. I’m a real late-night writer. Something clicks in the evenings for me and I have to write for hours and hours. I thought that once I had a child, it would change or that I would learn a new rhythm, and I’ve tried, but the real rhythm is always there. Of course, I have to get sleep, and my child wakes up at 6:30, so I can’t always work that way. But there are lots of mornings when she’ll make fun of me, because she wakes up and I’m still on the couch typing. Once, I was putting her to sleep and she was like, “Can you sit in my bedroom and type? The sound of your typing helps put me to sleep, it’s like rain.” I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.

On the people who help her get it done:
I am divorced and I co-parent. I don’t recommend being divorced as a way to get more time to write and sleep, but it does help. I do have child care — once we went into production on Dying for Sex, I had to fly back and forth to New York, and I didn’t want to take my daughter out of school. I had to hire a full-time nanny. I’ve been blessed to have these wonderful, incredible women who have come into my life as caregivers for my daughter. I’ve learned a ton from them as well as my mom. I also have a wonderful housekeeper who comes once every two weeks and helps with the amount of clutter between my daughter and my dog.

On managing stress:
Every week, I Zoom with my wonderful therapist. I also love listening to music. I take really long walks. I have a Peloton. While we had our writers’ room going for the show, we were often talking about really difficult and dramatic topics, so I found that when that was over, it really helped to go running. As a writer, you’re often sitting in one place not moving, and I have to constantly remind myself to move. I also have multiple desks: a standing desk, a desk in my house, and a small office near my house that I go to. Even just changing locations really helps. I also want to give a big shout-out to my foam roller. When we went to New York, I had my assistant ship a foam roller to the studio. I will just lie on it and put my arms out and listen to music or a meditation for at least ten minutes.

On self-doubt:
I have constant self-doubt, but I also have constant confidence. There’s no amount of success that won’t make the next time I go to start something this moment of total imposter syndrome. The second you’re faced with a new project, that moment of: Can I do this? I should’ve quit. I should’ve become a lawyer. I should’ve just taken the LSAT. The existential dread and the imposter syndrome is sadly, but also reassuringly, just a part of my process. Once you own that that’s always gonna happen, you’re like, Here it is again, that part where I try to convince myself that I just happened to sneak by and no one noticed.

On when it felt she’d “made it” professionally:
The other day I saw an ad for Dying for Sex on a bus, and I gasped and pulled over_._ There were billboards too, but there’s something about seeing it on a bus; it did something for me. Then, I went home and I was staring at this script that I was trying to write. I didn’t know how to write the scene and I was doing it all wrong. I thought to myself, You can be on the bus and it doesn’t matter. You’re still back here being humbled by the blank page.

On what she still wants to accomplish:
I want to keep writing more plays and get back to where I started. I don’t feel like I’ve done everything I could with my playwriting. My dream is to get back to writing a big, classic play. Also, I love writing musicals. I’ve written a couple and am in development on a couple projects that I’m really excited about and one that is hopefully starting to come together. I also want to keep writing great shows for television and more shows about women — more shows where we talk about women’s health and bodies, but also tell these stories in a way that’s entertaining and pleasurable and funny.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Dying for Sex Writer Kim Rosenstock Is a Night Owl Your product is saved! You’ll receive emails when your saved products go on sale. Manage preferences.