Like A 'Hall Of Mirrors,' TV Duo Dance With Selves On Other Side Of Screen

Transcript

ARUN RATH, HOST:

Dolly Wells and Emily Mortimer have been friends for a long time.

So how long have you two really known each other?

DOLLS WELLS: We've really known each other for about 35 years.

EMILY MORTIMER: (Laughter) We met when we were 25.

WELLS: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

MORTIMER: Yeah, yeah. We met when we were four.

RATH: The two actresses and their friendship star in the show "Doll And Em." It features fictional - but familiar - versions of each. A successful Hollywood actress named Emily invites her childhood friend Dolly to come out to Hollywood to be her personal assistant after a bad breakup. The second season of "Doll And Em" premieres tonight on HBO, so earlier this week, we had them in for a chat.

WELLS: My name's Dolly Wells.

MORTIMER: And my name is Emily Mortimer.

RATH: So we could spend the whole interview going through the ways you're really different from the TV versions of yourselves.

MORTIMER: Yes.

RATH: But a kind of, like, broad strokes, I would say from what I know about you, Dolly, obviously your character on the show is - you're kind of more uncertain of yourself. You're not a real actress, whereas in real life, you're a pretty accomplished performer.

WELLS: Well, who knows? But in the show, I am single. I don't have any children. I've left a job working as a waitress, and the only really solid, important, loving thing in my life is my relationship with Em.

RATH: And that's not true?

WELLS: In real life, that's the only thing that's not true.

(LAUGHTER)

WELLS: We do not have a loving relationship.

RATH: And, Emily, in - we know in real life, you are a star of the big and the little screen. What are the biggest ways in which you're different for the TV Emily?

MORTIMER: Oh, my goodness. I don't - I mean, I don't have the nits currently.

(LAUGHTER)

RATH: No lice problems that you know of.

MORTIMER: No, although there have been, indeed, lice problems in the past, but currently, I'm free of nits. What else? I don't think I'm quite so...

WELLS: Could answer this, but you didn't ask.

MORTIMER: I think you might have to answer it.

WELLS: It's such a mean question to ask her because...

MORTIMER: Because I'm much nicer in real life.

WELLS: No, that's the - that's the truth. What I feel proud of in us writing that character is that we made her be a lovable, sweet person, but, you know, who is also insecure and paranoid and a bit self-absorbed. And as a story, what's interesting is the fact that they don't confide in each other, so things that happen could definitely happen to Em and I in real life. She would be able to say, I really hope I get this film, and I'd say, I really hope you get this film. And the same with the other way around. We've got each other's best intentions in real life, whereas it wouldn't be quite so interesting to watch two people saying, no, I really think you should do it.

MORTIMER: I support you in whatever you do.

WELLS: Whatever you do, you must do it.

MORTIMER: (Laughter).

WELLS: Oh, that'd be so exciting. No, no, please.

(LAUGHTER)

RATH: Now, season two picks up with Doll and Em - you two, on the show. You are holed up in a lighthouse to write a play. And this just kind of gets my head spinning because you've written a TV show about versions of yourselves writing a play about versions of those versions of yourselves.

(LAUGHTER)

WELLS: I know. Russian dolls...

MORTIMER: It's very - it's very meta. But I think that we didn't realize we were writing about our friendship, really, at all in the first season.

WELLS: No, no.

MORTIMER: We didn't think we were - I don't think. It wasn't until afterwards when everyone kept telling us that's what we'd done and when we realized we'd called it "Doll And Em." So the second one became a kind of a riff on that feeling, in a way. So it's got - it's taken to an extreme now.

WELLS: Yeah, yeah.

MORTIMER: We've got...

WELLS: Like a sort of crazy mirror or something.

MORTIMER: Yeah.

WELLS: We just keep saying...

MORTIMER: Hall of mirrors.

WELLS: Yeah, a hall of mirrors - that you see people playing us - yeah, it just goes on and on and on.

MORTIMER: And we've got our entire family in this one. There's - Dolly's husband plays my husband. Dolly's kids play my kids. My husband plays my fake husband. Both of our mothers are in it.

WELLS: Your daughter, your mother-in-law.

MORTIMER: My daughter and mother-in-law are in it, avoiding...

WELLS: Afraid of catching nits from me.

MORTIMER: Terrified of catching nits.

(Laughter)

WELLS: Spoiler.

MORTIMER: Our dog is in it, even. I mean, everybody's in its.

RATH: Let's hear a bit from the new season. This is from the first episode. Here, you two are getting settled into the lighthouse where you've gone to write.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DOLL AND EM")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Hey, aren't you an actress?

MORTIMER: (As Em) Yes, I am. We both are.

WELLS: (As Doll) And playwrights now.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Smart - that's real smart.

MORTIMER: (As Em) Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) And are you writing parts for yourselves?

WELLS: (As Doll) Absolutely. Broadway, here we come.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Real smart. I'm guessing it's tough to book a job now that you're older. I mean, I hear the aging process is harsh for actresses. Am I right?

(LAUGHTER)

RATH: I'm guessing that might've been taken from real life.

(LAUGHTER)

WELLS: Oh, no, no, no. It's very, very easy for women.

MORTIMER: No one's ever, ever said that.

WELLS: It's much easier for women.

RATH: (Laughter).

WELLS: They always say, just take a deep breath, and when you get to 45...

MORTIMER: Everything will (laughter)...

WELLS: ...Everyone will want you to be the lead.

RATH: (Laughter).

WELLS: But the only different thing is that the men will be much, much younger.

MORTIMER: And more unattractive. I mean, parts of the - parts of the joy of writing it is kind of outing all this stuff that can be depressing and terrifying.

WELLS: Terrifying. Yeah, yeah.

MORTIMER: But then when you make a joke of it, it's sort of isn't.

WELLS: Stops being so frightening. It's totally true. Em was very brave about that. I was sort of thinking - really? Do we just - but it is very liberating. Talk about all the things that make you laugh or bother you or bugger you, and then you can make funny. And, yeah, it makes things seem less frightening.

MORTIMER: And the other thing that was a big theme in the first season and is still a theme in the second, although less so or more complicated in a way, is jealousy - such a human emotion and one that we're all just so deeply embarrassed about, but we all feel all the time. And we feel it most often towards the people that we love most in the world and for whom, ironically, you want the best. And you want their life to be wonderful, and you just care passionately about them. But when their life is wonderful and when things go brilliantly well for them, of course, it inevitably makes you feel a bit sick.

(LAUGHTER)

MORTIMER: And there are things like that that once you sort of say it and make a joke of it, it's somehow just sort of less of a big deal.

RATH: Has the success of the show - has it made things weird in your life or between the two of you that everything's kind of like, oh, that's got to go in the show or, you know, made you super self-conscious?

WELLS: No. I mean, no, there's moments like - when you just said something like in "Doll And Em" - I still...

(LAUGHTER)

WELLS: I still find it weird that it's called - I still get moments of being self-conscious about...

MORTIMER: Cringing.

WELLS: Cringing is the word. But, no, I don't - well, I can only speak for me, but because, as we say, we've been friends for so long, it's fantastically lucky that we got the chance to do this together. And we had written other things before, and we will write other things again that aren't "Doll And Em." So it's a chapter in our sort of friendship and our life and our - 'cause we've been friends forever, it was either going to work, or it wasn't going to work. And if it wasn't going to work, that was going to be much easier together. And if this was going to work, that was going to be much more enjoyable together. So I don't think it has made it.

RATH: That's Dolly Wells and Emily Mortimer. Their second season of their wonderful show "Doll And Em" premieres tonight on HBO. It's been great fun speaking with both of you. Thank you.

MORTIMER: Thank you.

WELLS: Thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.