- I'm Debi Mazer, and I play Maggie.
- I'm Nico Tortorella.
I play Josh.
- I'm Molly Bernard, and I play Lauren.
- I'm Peter Hermann, and I play Charles.
- I'm Sutton Foster, and I play Liza Miller.
And this is the cast of "Younger"
here to answer your burning questions.
(upbeat music)
- What were my first impressions of my castmates,
and did they change over the years?
Wow.
My first impression of Sutton Foster was,
uh oh, she knows my line better than me.
(laughing)
I had scenes with her mostly in the pilot,
and she comes from theater,
and I haven't done a lot of theater.
So I was sort of like, not intimidated,
but she had this other,
it was like a whole other worldly thing going on
where she, I could see her in her brain
remembering the pages.
And I was like, oh my God.
And I had my little tiny sides in my hand.
She was just so happy and nerdy and cool at the same time.
And I just was like, oh wow, this is gonna be great.
I didn't know what to think about Lizzie McGuire.
Oh my god, my kids watched Lizzie McGuire.
I never got to watch it.
Hillary Duff, she's an LA girl.
And then when she came on set, she was like a bad (beep).
She was pro, tough mama, fierce, and funny.
Nico, for me he was younger.
When you looked at the footage of when we first started,
I was like, whoa.
You were all shaved and young,
but you were always to me sort of like a little brother
and sweet and smart,
and you had always had this big curiosity
and this big laughter, and the same with Molly.
Molly to me, when she first walked in the set,
she was this sort of hummingbird-like creature
with these big eyes.
And then there was Peter Hermann.
And when he walked on this set,
I was sort of intimidated because he's so beautifully tall
and gorgeous and a quiet intellectual.
And actually no nobody was weird or mean,
and I just felt, oh, I could finally have fun here.
I found everyone to be so generous right at the get go.
So that was wonderful.
- Despite being floored to meet my idol, Sutton Foster,
and then being upset to talk about her bush
on national television, I was such a prude.
I was like, this is awful.
I did not meet Nico until episode maybe 11.
I remember thinking, oh, you're a very different person
than you were then.
I felt very intimidated by you.
Like you were a Hollywood guy, right?
And then over the course of our friendship,
you've become one of my best, softest,
almost like girlfriends.
Basically what I'm trying to say,
and not in the most successful way,
my first impression of you could not have been
more different than where our friendship has gone.
It's really odd.
- I would say the same thing about you.
Not the Hollywood guy, but you know, full transition, girl.
She has blossomed.
She is a falcon.
From humming bird to falcon.
(laughing)
And compared to our impressions now,
we've been on the show for seven years.
We have all grown together as a unit
and separately in our own private lives.
So much has happened over this time.
And I just love everyone more than I did back then.
What was our favorite storyline throughout the seasons?
- It happens this season that I can't talk about
'cause people haven't seen it.
So there's my favorite story line is coming up.
I'll answer the question.
It's sort of a pun to sort of a general way.
My favorite storyline is the writers.
The line that they were able to walk
between humor and really pushing the envelope,
which kept sending me to Urban Dictionary
to find out what things meant.
I was like, oh god.
- Were there any difficult scenes to film?
I think to the blind eye it seems like,
oh, it's all fun and games and it's all glamorous
and la-di-da.
The days are very long.
The scenes are often quite complicated,
and they're usually have a lot of different parts
and shots and set ups to them.
For me personally, I think it was season five.
Lauren was sleeping at the female club based off of the wing
called The Nest.
I had this emotional scene with Hill in the bathroom
of that female club.
And the line, "Failure is not an option."
I just thought about for days and days and days
leading up to it.
I need to make sure that we see that she's suffering,
but it's not a drama.
Learning how to modulate that
was a real learning moment for me.
But that was my hardest scene.
- Sutton and I had a lot of tense moments over the years.
Whenever we would show up to set,
and we knew that we had that scene,
we couldn't even look at each other.
Tears were there.
It was about to go down.
Those days were the hardest for me for sure,
and most rewarding, I would say.
- The moments where I've got to see you guys acting
in front of me, and then also see the monitor,
you could cut the tension with a knife.
We were so lucky to see those.
- But I really hated it.
It was like every scene where,
there was a whole season where Hillary and I,
every scene was like, that was the worst.
- Right.
- Her character was so mad at me.
That's the thing.
It's like, every season, everyone's mad at me
so we have all these fights.
Debi, you and I, Maggie and Liza are always pretty good.
- You know what was hard for me
is always being the one in the kitchen
who's either stirring something that's not actually there,
pouring grape juice, white wine, or club soda,
or making coffee.
And I'm like, get me out of this apartment, Darren.
I can make it look real,
but it just got boring after a while.
And I got the gift of getting a subway scene,
which I asked for for seven seasons
and at least this season I got that.
- We had so many amazing, amazing guest stars
and recurring characters.
An incredible list.
I think my favorite might've been Josh Pace
who plays Lauren's father.
I don't quite know how to describe it.
This impish expertise to his delivery.
This season, he gets hammered,
and he challenges someone to a pushup contest.
And I can't remember what the line was,
but it was utterly original, never been said before.
That was the case with every one of his lines somehow.
Just so wonderfully well done.
And then there was also Kristin Chenoweth's,
she can do a slow, one-eyed wink, which is super creepy.
Oh yeah, Molly can do it too.
Yes, god, that's weird.
- We also have Janeane Garofalo this season.
- Who is amazing.
- Jeneane Garafalo. - Stars are unbelievable.
You're forgetting about Kathy Najimy,
who's a national treasure.
- How do I feel about how the character's storylines
have ended, and how do I see their futures?
I echo what Peter said is that I really feel
like the writers took good care of everybody.
And I will say that I read the final script.
I can't say anything, but I read the final script,
which they gave us like the day before the final table read
'cause the writers are assholes,
and they won't tell us anything.
And they would always withhold everything.
And so we wouldn't know.
And we're all reading them on our phones,
trying to get through.
And I finished the final script,
and I was deeply satisfied.
I felt like it was incredibly satisfying
and incredibly true to the story and to my character.
There is an ending, but it's not an ending.
It's like a pause, you know?
You can't help but think what's next.
I don't know what the next decade will be.
Ooh, Nico and I, we're producing the movie,
the "Younger" movie, right?
- A limited series coming soon.
We're not done here.
- I feel like we're not done with these characters.
Maybe a little less drama-filled for Liza.
She's had some pretty drama-filled,
seven years of some drama.
So maybe some boring, some nice just happiness and success.
(upbeat music)