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Erika Henningsen didn’t always see a clear path for herself Four Seasons Jenny’s character in season two.
“I thought maybe I would have to say goodbye to this beautiful show after the first season,” Henningsen says. Hollywood Reporter On a recent Zoom call from her home in Los Angeles.
The first season ended with the tragic death of Jenny’s boyfriend, Nick (Steve Carell), and the revelation that Jenny was pregnant with their child. “To have that thrill and know that the writers were going to use that to integrate me into the friend group like Steve Carell’s character’s girlfriend was very exciting,” Henningsen says.
In season two, Jenny is still with The four seasons ring. The series, which follows a close-knit group of friends, was created by Tina Fey, Lange Fisher and Tracy Wigfield. Netflix has just announced that it has been renewed for a third season.
It’s fair that Henningsen doesn’t see a clear path back to her character — the show is, after all, about a group of friends, and Jenny was a stranger for most of the first season. But Jenny works through motherhood and the complex, and at times co-dependent, relationship she develops with her late boyfriend’s wife, Anne, played by Kerry Kinney Silver.
Below, Henningsen delves into Jenny’s journey for Season 2, why she loved Anne and Jenny’s story, continuing working with Tina Fey and her hopes for Season 3.
How did you feel going into this season? Obviously you knew things would be different.
We were all very happy to be back. This is a great team. It’s a great thing to have. My boss jokes about this all the time. They’re like, “We’ve never had a client not call us from set because of an issue. This is so rare, every time we call you, you feel like we’re on time. Everyone’s happy. I’m having a good time.” It’s really fun. This season was a lot of fun because I think the first season was about Jenny being just a fun young woman, which I definitely sympathize with, but having a baby added more oomph and chaos to the character, which I really enjoyed.
She mentioned in another interview that she had just entered adulthood and motherhood and had no choice in the matter. How do you deal with that mentality? It’s almost like a new character in a way.
Oh my gosh, I completely agree with you. I watched Jenny, who appears in the first two episodes of Season 2, and I was like, oh my God, I hope people still like me. I feel like she’s acting with this fire inside her. I’ve got some flint. First, we’ve got the best words ever, so we don’t have to do as much work, but I think my blind spot is that I’m not a mother. I did not get pregnant in the eighth to ninth month. I remember getting the script for the big confrontation scene with Anne and saying, “Oh my God, I can’t say this to her. She’s also lost someone. She’s struggling. I can’t say this. People will hate me.”
How did you work through that?
I talked to some of my mom friends and they were like, I don’t understand. When you’re this pregnant, all you care about — and all you really care about after pregnancy and birth — is your baby. You will be aggressive, and you will be aggressive in order to protect that child. That was the backbone that everything came from, was that allowing a little bit of chaos and fighting, because Jenny is trying to be the peacekeeper in the first season. She really wants to smooth out the edges created by her presence. In this [season]She says, “I have a baby now. I have to get ready.”
Obviously the relationship with Anne was very interesting. Can you tell me a little about finding that?
They’re those weird sister wives for a moment there. The Odd Couple is what I kept calling. I feel like the biggest thing that Kerry and I agreed on, and what our writers did a great job of crafting, is that I couldn’t feel like Jenny was taking advantage of Anne’s kindness. There’s something great Anne says: “I’m 55. I’m not good at dating, but you know what I’m good at? I’m good at raising kids.” The nature of the show is that we jump around in time a lot, so there are some gaps that we have to fill. The big question for me is, why is Jenny with them and not her friends?
completely.
I don’t know if you remember Friends from Season 1, but these people aren’t ready to have a baby at their brunch. For Kerry and me, there was a lot of work on formulating this mutual respect and need for the other person. Obviously I need her and her wisdom as a mother. She needed Jenny and Jeno for direction. I think we’ve kind of come full circle [being] In confrontation, and then we become too involved. But in the end, I think we reached a true friendship because my character is so grateful for what her character did. But Jenny, in her younger way, tells Anne: “You can still be the wild person you were.” I think this is the gift that Jenny gives Anne in the end, so that it doesn’t feel like a one-way street.
What about that moment when you stopped?
I remember seeing that scene and saying, “Oh, that’s a beautiful moment.” But then when I saw it all together, I realized that moment was so important because you see Jenny returning the favor to Anne by just holding up the mirror and saying, “This is not over. Your story is not over.” I’m really glad that it would be so easy for one of the other characters to say that to her, because I know they all believe it, but I think hearing that from this younger generation that doesn’t see it as an ending story but the beginning of a new chapter, I think that’s very powerful for her character and my character arc.
I’d love to hear about the importance of making sure it doesn’t feel like a one-way street. It’s a very complicated relationship, of course, no matter what.
completely. [It’s] Very complicated and very strange. I love that this is weird. I love that we have couples and that the couples deal with the issues that each couple has seen. Then I love that we have this weird little duo of her and I that is so messy and weird. But I would love for us to face problems that are not marital, but more about motherhood and trusting your intuition. They both need help trusting their inner voices – the voice of Jenny as a mother, and Anne who knows she still has so much more to do.
When did it become clear to you that you were essential to the plot of Season 2?
I think by the time we got to Thanksgiving. from [episodes] From one to four, I kept thinking they’re doing a good job, they must be doing such a good job because I’m going to say goodbye. Arc One through Four is Jenny taking her first steps to becoming independent as a mother. It’s very beautiful, but of course no one masters motherhood in five months. When I went to the Thanksgiving episode and honestly, I think there’s a beautiful parallel between that episode, Kerry’s character Kinney Silver and her daughter comes home from college, and her daughter says, “I’m ready to fly.” I feel like the daughter who is afraid to leave the proverbial nest, the freeloader, if you will. I think by the time we got to that episode and I also saw how involved Jenny was with not only Anne but Claude [Marco Calvani]And as part of the Thanksgiving experience. I’ve somehow become part of this weird chosen family, and I’m excited. I feel like there is a lot to understand about the way generations talk to each other.
What do you hope to do moving forward?
I have no idea if we’ll be able to do another season.[[This conversation took place before the third season was announced.]I have no idea if I’ll be a part of it, but I think we’ve created a great foundation for how all these people interact outside of their marriage. I love the scenes I get to watch with Claude this season because I love Marco Calvani. I mean I love everyone, but Marco is my friend. Everyone wants to look at that person at the dinner table and say, “Can you believe this is happening right now?” I think in a group of friends, it’s that for her. They function as a kind of outsider, he because he is an immigrant and she because he is younger, and yet they still find themselves part of it. So I’m excited to see Jenny, Claude, and Gino take a road trip.
How was your partnership with Tina? It’s nice to see how it has grown from I mean girls [musical] days.
I think the girl who watched means girls Once a week in high school, I would be kind of shocked that the center point of my career would be Elizabeth Stamatina Faye. He has changed a lot. I still put her, and you’re going to hate this, on a pedestal. I still want so badly to make her proud and impress her and not embarrass her or her project or whatever she’s working on, because I met her when I was 24. This little person will still live inside me. But I felt more confident. I feel like I’m finally hearing the message I’ve been trying to instill in me since I was 24, which is that no one does favors in this business. You’re here because you’re supposed to be here, and you’ve earned it. Especially since Tina is a woman who has earned everything she’s worked for, it’s really important that, as a young woman who always finds my way into her projects, she really wants me to understand that I’m here for a reason. It’s because of me and my work, which happens to be Tina Fey’s projects. And yet, I still can’t find the words to thank her because if she doesn’t do these projects, if she doesn’t sign on the dotted line when my name appears on her desk, I won’t do them.
Has the relationship changed at all?
Now that we work together as collaborators and peers, rather than as boss to employee, I know a lot more about it. It’s a paradox. She’s very outgoing when you watch her in things. I was watching her in Sistersand is truly one of my favorite Tina and Amy [Poehler] Offers. She’s very outgoing, very crazy, and very funny. But what you really want to do is sit down with a lavender candle and a cup of tea and have people sit on the couch. It’s just a great combination of someone who can keep all the plates spinning at once, but is careful to make dinner reservations at 5:30 p.m., so we can all be at our parties with our families at 8 p.m.
Look, I love these shows like Overcompensation and trance. I love these youth shows. until I love Los AngelesI love this show. I don’t know if I’m cool enough to be one of those. I’m right where I’m supposed to be with these 50 year olds because they are my speed. They’re my style, and I love them. Part of that is because our resting heart rate is 12. They really all just want to have fun and be silly and goofy. I would love to see this side of Tina. I would love to see a girl who grew up doing theater in Philadelphia, who wants to sing. I’ve got a video of her and Coleman [Domingo] singing nightclub. Coleman also comes in from the stage, and any time he starts singing, Tina is there. I love that about her.
