‘Dying For Sex’ Is A Funny, Wrenching True Life Story About Sexual Desire, Best Friends, And Discovering What Matters Most

If your best friend is dying, the idea of creating a podcast with her probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.

But, this is exactly what happened for Nikki Boyer and Molly Kochan.

When Molly received a terminal cancer diagnosis, she decided to leave her husband of 15 years and, supported by Nikki, set out on a quest to learn more about herself and her truest sexual desires.

This is how the pair came to create the very true and heartbreaking podcast Dying for Sex, now an eight episode television series, which details the relationship between Nikki and Molly, follows Molly’s sexual escapades, and Molly’s evaluation of her life as she fights cancer.

While the series does have many, many dramatic moments, and plenty of unusual sexual situations, it also finds humor in the extremely ridiculous things that often happen in real-life, and even those that occur in death.

With Boyer serving as an executive producer alongside Elizabeth Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock, the series stars Michelle Williams as Molly and Jenny Slate as Nikki.

The duo first met in an acting class, says Nikki of her origin story with Molly.

“I remember noticing her and thinking she was just so cool and different looking. And she immediately wanted to, I think, punch me in the face because she thought I was annoying, And then we got paired up for a scene together that kind of changed everything, because I don’t know if we would have become the friends if we wouldn’t have been paired up like that.”

Later, as they were deep into Molly’s treatment and sexual odyssey, Nikki says that she told Molly, “I think there’s something to what you’re doing, this journey of rediscovering your sexuality in the face of a terminal diagnosis, and then I said, “I think it’s a show, and I think it’s called ‘Dying for Sex,’ and she was like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s it!’ So, it was kind of my idea, but, obviously inspired completely by her life.”

So the women embarked on a months long journey to record Molly’s truest feelings about what she was going through.

Once Molly [spoiler alert, but not really] had passed away, it became up to Nikki to be Molly’s voice, which Nikki admits she had mixed emotions about doing. “I do feel like I’m speaking for her, but we were different people. Our brains fired differently. She was way smarter than I am. So there is some trepidation at times to speak for her, but I think if there is one person on the planet that could do that, it would be me. And so I may not get it right all the time, but I’m probably pretty close, But yeah, I always hope I’m doing her justice, and being as thoughtful as she would be.”

To adapt the podcast into a television show, Nikki says that she, Meriwether and Rosenstock, ‘created a timeline from the day that Molly and I met till the day she passed away.’

“Liz and Kim were just both so loving and interested in the details and emotions, all of it. They would go off and write for months then come back and I’d read a rough draft, but I never really gave notes or anything like that. I mean, I gave a couple of suggestions but I would never give them notes because they’re amazing and knew exactly what they were doing.”

When it came time to shoot, Nikki was on set, she says, about 50% of the time, which she feels was the proper amount.

“In my opinion, it was sort of a dance, because having the person on set that’s the real person I think was helpful, but at first it may have made everybody feel a little like, ‘oh, is this going to be okay?’ But it also felt like very quickly we all realized that we trusted each other. There was no controlling vibes or no weird feelings. Yes, there were bumps along the way to figure things out, but overall we all worked very well together.”

Meriwether says that she thought it was actually ‘an amazing gift to have Nikki there.’

“The relationship between Nikki and Molly was what made the podcast so great, and we wanted to make a show that honored that.”

Rosenstock adds, “But, at the same time, we were excited for this show to be its own thing, and with Nikki’s blessing, we were allowed to really explore our own version of this story, while keeping all of the essential parts of the real story intact.”

In addition to having Nikki present, Meriwether says that the team really felt that, “Molly was always on our mind. Her experience and her bravery and her spirit were very much with us throughout all of this.”

On-screen, the character of Nikki initially comes across as a bit ditzy, which the real-life version says might not be exactly accurate. “Well, there were parts of me that felt that sort of scattered in my 20s, so I could see myself being that version at points in my life,” then she laughs a little as she says, “but yeah, that’s not how I am now.”

She adds, “But I didn’t mind the freedoms that everyone took in making this, because actually I felt like it gave my on-screen character a real journey, because the journey they decided to take for the Nikki character is a bit different from what my journey was at the time, but I think it actually works best in highlighting Molly’s story.”

When Slate was cast as her, Nikki says that, “I was like, ‘yes!’ because more than anything I thought she was the perfect Nikki for Michelle Williams as Molly. I felt it was going to be a nice match, and that’s one aspect of the series that I felt was really, really important.”

She says that when she met Slate she ‘instantly fell in love with her,’ and that, “I think something kind of spiritual happened between the two of us. When somebody else is playing you, there’s just a love and a gratitude that I have for her, because she’s so good. She just got it.”

For her part, Slate says that she was excited to play Nikki because, “This character was written with such detail, such warmth, and such an interesting combination of characteristics, and I was lucky enough to be able to ask the real Nikki a lot of questions about what her emotional mechanics. And all of that I just deeply, deeply enjoyed. I loved every minute of it.”

Having worked as an actress in the past, the real Nikki Boyer does have a cameo in the series. “I remember timidly asking, ‘I get to play a role in this, right?’ In the beginning though it just felt like there wasn’t really a right role for me. I told them, ‘Listen, I’ll play a janitor or whatever,’ but then, they reached out to me and asked if I’d play Molly’s cousin Sheila. I was like ‘absolutely’ and I got to act alongside Michelle Williams and Sissy Spacek. It was amazing.”

Nikki is a little reflective as she credits Molly for making so much happen for her. “I mean, what a gift she’s given me. My entire career, I’ve been craving to create stories and be on set and be in that world, and I’ve always been, like, elbowing my way through, and then here I am sitting on set and getting to do a career goal of mine all because of Molly. I’m just so grateful to her for that.”

It’s for this reason that Nikki says that no matter how emotional working on the project made her, she didn’t turn away from anything as it was being shot. “I didn’t want to not watch any of it, no matter how sad it was, because it feels like it existing is a miracle that Molly engineered for me. So I wanted to feel everything in those moments.”

For viewers, Nikki hopes that, “First of all, I want everyone to fall in love with Molly and just really get to know my best friend and honor how brave and cool and vulnerable she was. And then I really want people to think about what are you going to do with the time that you have left? How are you going to take this story and implement it into your life? I think this shows you that you need to decide what’s important to you, what matters to you, what brings you meaning and love in life, and do that tenfold.”

As for how this whole experience has changed her personally, Nikki concludes, “You know ,when you’re in the throes of making stuff, you don’t have that reflection time, so right after Molly passed away, I immediately went into the work of telling her story, but there have been times where I stopped and thought, ‘There’s a bigger picture moment here,’ and I think it’s taught me to be really clear about what I want in my life, not be wishy-washy. I really feel like I’m much more clear about everything now.”

And now that her time telling Molly’s story has come to a close, Nikki says that, “There’s a deep grief of letting go. I can feel it in me right now, but I also feel like this is not really letting Molly go; it’s letting go just of the hard work it took to make this happen. And what’s happened is that Molly’s actually inspired me to continue to tell stories. So I have my own production company now called Dying for Media and right now I’m reaching out to find stories that I feel like are as profound as Molly’s. So, while this part of Molly’s story feels complete, she’s living on through these other stories that I get to tell. So she’s still everywhere, and I take a lot of comfort in that. I hope everyone that watches this show and hears her story will too.”

All episodes of ‘Dying for Sex’ are now available for streaming on Hulu.

*** In the interest of full disclosure, I, Anne Easton, am personal friends with Nikki Boyer and knew Molly Kochan. Please note, these prior relationships did not play a part in the reporting of this story.