WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Dying For Sex. 

Michelle Williams shared that the real-life inspiration for Disney+’s Dying For Sex caused her to “weep” ahead of filming. 

Dying For Sex is based on the Wanderly podcast of the same name by Nikki Boyer, the best friend of Molly Kochan who died of breast cancer in 2019. 

Prior to spending her remaining days in a hospice, Molly left her husband of 15 years so she could find out what she likes sexually, sharing her hilarious anecdotes with Nikki. 

The pair recorded their unusual conversations in the lead-up to Molly’s death which were then used as part of the award-winning podcast Dying For Sex which the Disney+ show is based on. 

The eight-part comedy-drama features an all-star cast led by five-time Academy Award nominee Michelle Williams as Molly and It Ends With Us actress Jenny Slate as Nikki Boyer with the woman herself working behind the scenes as an executive producer. 

The cast and crew of Dying For Sex opened up about their emotional reactions to the podcast when they first listened to Molly’s story. 

Showrunner Kim Rosenstock shared during a press conference: “I listened to it when Liz [Elizabeth Meriwether, co-creator] sent it to me and asked if I would be interested in making this show with her, and I just remember lying on the floor of my living room, listening to the final two episodes just like sobbing and feeling like I had just listened to something that was so…

“It seemed like it was one specific small story but it contained like the entire universe, and it was huge, and I had never heard anything like it in my entire life, and I called her back and I said ‘I have to work on this with you. Thank you for asking me.’”

The Greatest Showman star Williams also had a similar reaction ahead of filming for the Disney+ series. 

“When this came to me, there was one script, the first episode of the series, and I finished it and I thought, well, that's - wow. Hm, interesting,” she commented.

“And then I went to the podcast. I discovered the podcast for the first time, and it laid out the entire journey and then similarly found myself on the floor, weeping, and I listened to it for a second time so that I could understand why I was so moved by it.

“[I] Couldn’t understand why I was so moved by it, and so I knew I had to go make this show to understand why this expression of female friendship and sexuality had so overwhelmed my like regulatory system that I was - couldn’t speak.”

The Dying For Sex podcast was named Podcast Of The Year both by Podcast Academy’s Awards For Excellence in Audio and The Ambies when it was first released. 

While Molly died five years ago, Nikki has since launched the audio-first content company Dying For Media which she described to The Wrap as “a safe space for no-fluff content around topics that are historically taboo and skewed in the media”. 

She also had a minor part in the Disney+ series portraying cousin Sheila in the episode My Pet. 

Dying For Sex is available to watch on Disney+.