They say timing is everything. But it’s not always on your side.
The Hollywood Reporter had the opportunity to spend some time with Allison Williams on Zoom — 20 minutes to be precise — two days ago to talk about a new partnership in her life. The star of Girls, Get Out, M3GAN and Fellow Travelers has teamed up with Sanofi and Regeneron to share her personal experience living with moderate-to-severe eczema and how she’s found relief by taking Dupixent (aka dupilumab).
The chat was timed to Eczema Awareness Month, but Tuesday’s interview opportunity also nearly bumped up against a shocking small screen surprise: A decade after ending a run as one of the buzziest shows of the 2010s, Girls is returning to HBO with a five-episode, limited-run revival that will reunite creator and star Lena Dunham with Williams, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet and Andrew Rannells.
We were already itching to ask her about Girls, but Williams, ever the professional, made sure to keep the big reveal under wraps during the eczema-centric conversation, only to see it break about an hour later. She did, however, note that she and Dunham just spent time together (perhaps to record the video announcement?). “I saw her on Saturday. We hung out together. We talk about it a lot, and I will show up anytime she asks me to,” she said of a Girls reunion.
Beyond the aforementioned, THR quizzed Williams on the experimental indie film she just shot in Wales with Quentin Tarantino and Kylie Minogue, the status of her SXSW thriller with Charlie Day and how it felt to see Girls land on The New York Times list of the top 100 shows of the 21st century.
I’ll take any chance to bug you with some questions but I was surprised to see an interview opportunity come my way to talk … eczema?
When I get into something, I go hard. When I discover something that I want everyone to know about, I like to pick up the biggest megaphone I can. What felt like a very small thing in my life has had much bigger ramifications on my quality of life than I could have imagined. I immediately was very, very interested in partnering with Sanofi and Regeneron because I know a lot of people in my own life who have eczema and have always had it. They assume their options stop at prescription topical medication. If that doesn’t work, they assume, “OK, I guess I’m stuck with this.” That’s where I was as well, until it started showing up on my scalp and in other places.
For some reason, I was fine with it being on my calves for my entire life. Then suddenly it moved to my scalp and I was like, “Oh, hell no. This is not happening.” I went to my dermatologist and asked, “Is there something I have not tried yet in the pantheon of treatment options?” I thought maybe she would give me a topical medication, but she mentioned Dupixent, or dupilumab. (More details on Dupixent here and safety information here.)
What was that moment like?
I remember it clearly. As she described how it works, I realized she was describing an injection. I was super scared of shots. I always looked at people who gave themselves injections as if they were the bravest, strongest-willed people of all time. I marveled at the ability to put a needle into your own body. But my dermatologist walked me through how to do it and gave me ideas about forming a routine around it. The proof is in the pudding. I’m sitting and talking to you now. I not only don’t dread the injections, but I have a routine around them. It’s a little ritual. There are a lot of people who fit into the category of six months and older, moderate-to-severe eczema, for whom prescription topicals have not treated the condition. Technically, all of those people may have the option, if they talk to their doctor, for this to be really helpful and make a huge difference in their lives. I just wanted people to know that if they didn’t.
As someone who is public facing and has to be on red carpets or in wardrobe departments, how have you navigated that?
Now that I’m experiencing fewer symptoms, fewer flare-ups and less itching, I can appreciate the extent to which it was a big part of my day-to-day life. It was something that just had to be worked around. When I was younger, we tried a bunch of different strategies. I’d wear gloves or mittens to bed so I couldn’t itch my legs, but then in my sleep I’d take them off and itch anyway. As I got older, I started determining what I’d wear based on how my calves were doing. If I was having a flare-up, I wouldn’t wear shorts. If I wasn’t, I would.
I remember one year when I flew into L.A. for the Golden Globes. It was the year Girls won for best comedy. I had already picked my gown, and it was long and floor-length, which was a good thing because the morning of the awards show, I was watching TV and absentmindedly using — this sounds crazy, but people with eczema will understand — the clippy part of a pen cap to itch my leg. Maybe I had a gel manicure and couldn’t get that satisfying feeling with my own fingernails. I was watching TV and itching my legs, and I looked down. Not only was there the initial flare-up, but now there were huge red scratches and hives. It was a disaster.
You can look at pictures of me up on that stage in my beautiful long black dress, celebrating this win. If you had X-ray vision, you would have seen the insanity happening on my legs. It’s something that costume departments and makeup departments have to know about if it needs to be covered, and it’s unpredictable. It was just a variable I had to operate around.
You mentioned talking to friends about eczema. Is there a celebrity chain where people share tips and tricks?
I want there to be one. I love when people talk to me about it. I’ll give you an example: A friend and I were talking about it the other day because she had been on it and went off it for some reason. Through the course of our conversation, she got so nostalgic for it and for how much better she felt that she said, “OK, I think I’m emailing my dermatologist. I’m going back on.” If it has brought you relief, and you have that reaction to it, that’s positive. I hope I’ll hear about all the people I know who are using this medication without realizing it.
What can you tell me about your new movie, Tangled Up in Blue, which has a cast that includes Quentin Tarantino, Kylie Minogue, you, Jason Isaacs, RZA…
It was one of the most wonderful creative experiences of my life. It’s a movie by a Welsh filmmaker named Jamie Adams, who makes movies with a very specific formula: super-low-budget, six-day, improvised films. That’s the formula, usually shot in Wales. We filmed this movie over the course of six days. There’s an outline, but all the dialogue is improvised, and the movie shifts as you go. He shoots with one camera. It’s a very unique style of filmmaking, and he’s tried every number of days there is but six is the magic number.
It was an incredible experience, not just because of the cast. I was pinching myself every day. It was absolutely surreal. But the creative process was so wonderful. It was playful, and every department got to improvise at the same time. If someone invokes a book they’re reading, it has to show up as a prop the next day. Every department is on its toes and working together. It was a wonderful experience. I haven’t seen a cut yet, but I think I’m going to soon.
Do you have scenes with everyone?
I didn’t have any scenes with RZA directly, which is a bummer, but I got to hang out with him.
What was it like working with Quentin Tarantino or Kylie Minogue?
Both of them have done a lot of acting in their careers; they just became really well-known for other skills. In a way, it was fun to work with both of them at a skill that’s deeply embedded in their whole systems. Quentin is such a performer. I’ve heard that when he auditions people, he really performs with them. He loves to be embodied and demonstrative. Kylie is as well. They were both so open and present. It was a blast.
That must pour more fuel on your creative fire when you do something that’s improvised and stretches you in that way.
It’s really helpful. Honestly, it feels like part of a balanced diet as an actor. You should have a project like this in the mix with something you’re also working on long-term. Simon Pegg has done two of these with Jamie and may do a third soon, and he’s said that he’d been shooting Mission: Impossible for something like four years so to shoot an entire feature in six days was [exciting]. Having those two things happening simultaneously in a career is incredible.
It’s a unique process. You have to let go of being precious about anything. When it’s truly improvised, the camera is often focused on only one person for an entire pass of a conversation. Then they turn the camera around, and who knows if you’re going to go to the same places. The funniest thing you say might not even have been on your face, and you have to be OK with letting it go. It was an interesting exercise, especially for someone who likes to be precise in my preparation, to shed all of that. I kept feeling like I was living in one of those anxiety dreams where I didn’t learn my lines for the play and was being pressed onto the stage — except it was happening on purpose. I kept texting Jamie, “Is there some prep I’m supposed to be doing? Is there homework? I feel so weird showing up to this set without anything memorized.”
You had a movie at SXSW that made a splash, Kill Me. What’s the latest with that?
It’s still looking for a home. I’m so eager to get it out into the world. We’re very proud of it. I got to work with Charlie Day, who is an absolute delight. He’s one of the true gems of our business. Peter Warren, who wrote and directed it, was making his first feature. It was a small independent movie shot in Salt Lake City. We shot fast and for not a lot of money, and made something really special. I can’t wait until we can get it out into the world with the right vehicle. I’m hopeful. We’re holding out for the right lifespan for it, but that might mean waiting a little longer. That’s OK.
What conversations are you having with acting friends, producers and filmmakers about the realities and challenges of the business right now?
Everyone feels like we’re behind on something that no one is caught up on. It’s an entity that’s moving and shifting on its own, and we’re all doing our best to keep up with it. Even the people driving that change aren’t necessarily in charge of it or aware of the implications it will have for everyone. I was talking to a friend who’s a visual effects supervisor, and he said, “It’s been so slow. It’s just crazy.” That’s obviously a field that may feel the impact of AI sooner than others.
But for actors, it’s not only that there isn’t much work. It’s also that, given the lack of work, the expectation is that you can turn around six pages of a self-tape in 24 hours. It’s like, “Well, dance for me. If you’re so starved for work, pull a rabbit out of your hat. Make a miracle happen.” That doesn’t feel very good, either. I think it will settle. Eventually, we’ll find our stasis in this new landscape. There’s so much change right now, but in this moment it’s really painful for a lot of actors — even just meeting their health care quotas. It’s tough. It’s really tough. I’ve always considered myself so lucky to make my living doing this job. I don’t take it for granted, and I didn’t expect that to be the case for a long time. I feel that acutely right now, especially as the bar gets higher and higher for how to sustain a life this way.
I feel like it’s required by law that I ask Allison Williams about Girls. The good news is that the show made The New York Times’ list of the top TV shows of the 21st century, landing in the top 10. How did you find out, and did you look through the rest of the list?
I did. I looked through all the entries. I think I first saw it through a Times alert. Out of curiosity, I thought, “I’m just curious to see how this list is.” Then it stopped me in my tracks. It’s a very strange feeling to have the synergy of something you value so much in your personal life — something that was seminal and foundational for who you are as a human being — also be something that people you don’t even know appreciate and that means something to them. That’s an amazing overlap.
For me, Girls looms really large. It’s in the top experiences of my entire lifetime. The fact that it’s also in [The New York Times] top 10 TV shows of the 2000s is astonishing.
Does that give more fuel for a reunion? Lena Dunham recently told Andy Cohen while on her book tour that she has an idea for what a revival could be. Did you see that, and have you talked to her about it?
I saw her on Saturday. We hung out together. We talk about it a lot, and I will show up anytime she asks me to.
Interview edited for length and clarity.
