Emily Ratajkowski on ‘Too Much’ and Parasocial Relationships

SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers for “Too Much.”

Emily Ratajkowski has returned to acting after making headlines in 2023 for firing her team and leaving the business. At the time, she lamented the feeling of making herself “digestible to powerful men in Hollywood,” so it’s no surprise that her first new project is not only created by a woman, but by her friend: Lena Dunham.

“Too Much,” Dunham’s new Netflix comedy series, follows Jessica (Megan Stalter) in the months following her breakup from her ex-boyfriend Zev (Michael Zegen). Ratajkowski plays Wendy, Zev’s new girlfriend, who is an influencer, and the constant stream of Instagram photos from Zev and Wendy’s happy life together drives Jessica crazy. She drunkenly breaks into their New York apartment to confront them one night, while Wendy does tell Jessica she seems crazy, she’s surprisingly calm and generous during the encounter.

Throughout the series, Jessica records videos addressed to Wendy that she uploads to a private Instagram account. It’s meant to be an outlet for her to cope with her breakup, but one day, she accidentally makes the account public and the videos go viral. Soon after, Wendy reaches out to Jessica and asks to meet up. Rather that discuss the videos, Wendy asks Jessica for details on the timeline of her breakup with Zev, and together, they realize Zev was lying to them both. They bond over the way Zev treated them and wish each other well, with Wendy even offering Jessica advice about her current relationship with Felix (Will Sharpe).

Ratajkowski spoke to Variety about playing “the other woman.”

You and Lena Dunham have been friends for a long time. What were your initial thoughts when she told you about this role?

We’ve always had a lot of conversations around women that you feel like you’re connected to in strange ways, but you don’t totally know them. And how, as we’ve gotten older, we’ve always been pro-sisterhood, but that when you’re younger, you don’t necessarily do that, because you’re intimidated or because it’s a defense mechanism.

Do you relate to Jessica as well as Wendy in that way? Having those ideas about other women, but having others project onto you as well?

I mean, I’ve been Jessica and I’ve been Wendy. I think, probably, that’s true for most people. At first, Lena had written her as a lawyer, and I was like, “I want her to be a little bit more hateable.” She was such a smart, perfect, amazing person who was, like, posting social justice stuff online. And I was like, “I really want this girl to be an influencer, and I don’t think that’s leaning into stereotypes, because we’re going to get to know her in a better way, but I think the payoff could be really great at the end.” It’s a weird time we live in. 30 years ago, if your ex-boyfriend got a new girlfriend, you’d maybe meet her once, or see a picture once, but now you can have access to their everyday goings-on. And I think that can really fuck with your brain, because it’s someone that you share a person with or history with, and there’s a connection, but they’re behind a screen. So I think it was really cool the way that Lena explored that.

Tell me more about wanting to make her feel hateable. Was the purpose of that to help validate the way Jessica’s feeling?

No, I just liked the idea that people are like, “Oh, of course, an influencer.” There’s just a lot of judgment for women who post a lot online, or play into the attention economy. And I personally didn’t think that made her more hateable, but I could see why someone else would. Somebody who was well-meaning was like, “Let’s make her so smart.” I’m like, “She is so smart. But that doesn’t mean she has to be a lawyer, right?” And she also is just in opposition to Jessica in so many ways. She’s really cool and collected, and she’s creatively fulfilled, and all these things that Jessica can’t relate to. But then, of course, we get to see that she’s also this dynamic character in the final episode.

Until that final episode, we only see Wendy through the perspective of Jessica, who imagines that she and Zev have a picture-perfect life together. But obviously, Wendy’s relationship with Zev had big problems. How do you imagine that time?

I [thought of Wendy] as a girl who was living with roommates and who had had serious relationships before, but maybe of a certain kind. She was like, “Oh, this is the dorky guy. He’s safe.” Which happens with women in your 20s and your 30s. You try out different tropes, because you’re like, “Maybe this archetype! The sweet guy! Or the nerdy guy! They’re going to be different! I’ll be safe from these things I’ve experienced before.” My vision of Wendy was that she was like, “He’s such a nice Jewish boy who has great taste in music, and sees me for who I am all the things that I love to do. And we can talk about all the cool shit that I want to talk about. He’s cozy.” And, of course, he turns out not to be that way at all.

And how do you think Wendy was imagining Jessica? She was definitely being told one story by Zev, but she seems to have had her own perspective too.

I’m sure she also has stalked Jessica [online]. There’s probably, like, three girls whose lives she checks in on regularly. And she does have a crazy experience with Jess, which obviously validates a lot of what Zev was probably telling her. When she breaks in, I think she’s of two minds. She’s like, “Okay, you’re kind of crazy, and I’ve heard all these crazy things about you. But also, you’re just crashing out and not handling it well.” She’s more generous — although even Jess, throughout the whole thing, never falls into thinking [Wendy] is stupid. There’s some semblance of respect. I think both of the characters have that. I always say, if a guy tells you all of his ex-girlfriends are crazy, that’s a red flag.

After having Jessica break into the apartment in the middle of the night and then later seeing these private videos Jessica recorded about her, why does Wendy still want to meet up with her? How is she comfortable with that?

With being gaslit, there’s always a feeling. Wendy moved into this apartment, and she was told one story that was not true, but there were signs — the Cupcake rosé, the face wash, stuff that didn’t add up. And it can be a really weird feeling when your biggest fears are validated. I imagine Wendy in this moment being like, “Oh, wow. All the things that I was not wanting to believe, because I didn’t want to believe my partner would be lying to me, now I get to see them. And as horrible as that is for her relationship, she has a really great perspective on it, which is, “Now I know the truth, and that’s better than living this other way.”

How did it feel to shoot the meet-up with Jessica? It has such a different tone from the rest of your appearances in the season, which happen from Jessica’s perspective.

I absolutely loved it. It was the first scene I shot for the show, and it was my first time being directed by a woman, and by my friend [Dunham]. Meg and I had just met, and even though we exchanged a few stories, it was sort of fresh. That felt really nice. I felt like it helped inform the scene, the fact that it was the first day, and we had just so much fun shooting it. Meg is amazing at improv. She just goes for it. So there were takes that were very funny, but there were some that were more tender, and it was just a pleasure.

After they finish talking about Zev, why do you think Wendy goes out of her way to give Jess advice about her new relationship?

I think she’s in a very reflective moment. Wendy’s the type of girl to do a lot of therapy, and I imagine that she’s like, “Alright, I’m going to move on with my life. I’m open to love.” She’s in a very wise place, which can happen — I think you can feel like a zen master while crashing out during a breakup. And she’s obviously seen Jess’ videos. She’s had a real life experience of her breaking into her house, so she’s putting boundaries around her friendship and being like, “I’m not trying to hang out with you all the time, but if you’re asking me, here’s some of the ways that I’m living my life.”

If “Too Much” is renewed, do you see a world where you’d return to this world? Do you see a future where Wendy and Jessica continue to cross paths?

I definitely do. And Lena and I have had fun little convos about what that would look like. I mean, who knows? But I absolutely loved playing her. The world felt so clear to me. I know [Wendy] well — I feel like I could run into her on the street in Brooklyn. So it’d be very fun to return to her.

You’ve spoken in the past about feeling pigeonholed in Hollywood and cast based on your looks rather than your substance. Here, you get to subvert that, with Wendy being portrayed as just another hot girl on the internet until we get deeper and see who she really is. Did you feel like you were working through those hard moments in your career through this role?

Lena was the first person who published my writing, on Lenny Letter, but she knew about me from Instagram. I’ve had a lot of experiences, with Lena specifically, where she has seen past surface level things and given me so many opportunities. When I shot [“Too Much”], I was about to turn 33. I’m a grown ass woman, with a child, and it just felt very natural and right to be doing the kind of roles and working with the kind of people who share the ideas I do around women and respect. So I wasn’t really working anything, but it felt really nice.

This interview has been edited and condensed.