Ginny and Georgia’s Brianne Howey on Season 3 Cliffhangers

[This story contains major spoilers from Ginny & Georgia season three.]

Brianne Howey may know Georgia inside and out after playing her for three seasons in Netflix‘s Ginny & Georgia, but there was still another side she got to unlock this season.

After being arrested at the end of season two during her wedding for the murder of Cynthia’s (Sabrina Grdevich) husband, Tom, Georgia is now on trial for her life in the show’s third installment. Throughout the season, as the courtroom battle turns to chaos, so does her family and personal life.

Not only is she put on house arrest, but her husband, Paul (Scott Porter), leaves, her children, Ginny (Antonia Gentry) and Austin (Diesel La Torraca), are ripped away from her and her entire past is broadcast for the entire world to see. However, Howey tells The Hollywood Reporter that Georgia’s breakdown was crucial this season “in order to get to her breakthrough.”

“Georgia being such an extreme person, the consequences had to be equally as extreme in order for it to rattle her enough to see outside of herself and see all of the pain and trauma she’s caused her family and the community,” the actress explains.

Below, Howey opens up about navigating an emotional season, her preparations to show a different side of Georgia, if she’s happy Georgia got away with murder, her thoughts on the finale’s cliffhangers and her hopes for her character in season four.

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When you first got the season three scripts and read everything that was going to happen, what was your initial reaction?

Going into a season, we know the broad strokes. We know the larger story arcs, but we don’t know the exact details about how, when, where the characters arrived to those plot points. So they’re page turners. I mean, we’re begging for scripts, we’re constantly asking who has the script. We’re trying to get it from other departments because other departments normally get the script sooner than we do. So it’s pretty cutthroat around there to get the scripts, and then once we start reading, I never read anything so fast as I read a Ginny & Georgia script because A, I love it. It’s wonderful. And B, I’m dying to know where are we’re going with this and how the hell am I going to pull this off. 

Georgia was really brought to her breaking point this season, compared to the first two seasons. Can you talk through your preparations for playing a different side of Georgia this season?

We talked a lot about how this was Georgia’s breakdown season in order to get to her breakthrough. For how dramatic and how heavy this season is, it truly feels like all paths led here. Georgia, it was time to face some consequences. Granted, it was very hard to see and portray and watch and do, but we started small and we just tried not to get too ahead of ourselves. I knew that we had the mid-season, around episodes five or six, once the kids go to spend time with their fathers, that’s sort of the peak of George’s breakdown. So everything led there and we just kept turning up the dial slowly but surely, and tried really hard not to get ahead of ourselves to make sure that these deep emotions were earned by the time we got there. 

When dealing with such heavy material this season, is there anyone or anything you leaned on to help tackle those subjects?

Tony, I rely very heavily on Tony. We’re really there for each other. She’s the biggest support system I have. Granted, the show is a true ensemble, and I’m grateful to everyone on set, and I’ve never seen people work harder than they did this season. It was amazing. But Ginny also goes through some really dark, emotions, and she always has. So in that sense, Tony and I are definitely able to rely on each other, and it also creates a safe space. Some of these scenes are scary to do and I know that if I just take a deep breath, I have Tony on the other side of it, and no matter what happens, she has my back and I have hers. And it’s also the beauty of we’re in our season three, going into our season four, there’s so much more confidence and security regarding these really nuanced, heavy subjects. 

Do you ever find it challenging to balance Georgia’s humor with the heaviness of the show?

It is a fine line to toe, but that’s what we love about Georgia and that’s what we want to see from Georgia. And that was a big part of the audition process was towing that line, so throughout when I was auditioning, it was a lot of, the first half of the scene is really dark and the second half of the scene is a comedy. And can you do both? We mixed it around a lot and we flipped the scenes on their heads, and in the moment, I didn’t understand why, but now that I’ve gotten to live with this character for so many seasons, I fully understand why because tonally, Georgia does take really hard right turns, she takes hard left turns, and it’s sort of part of Georgia’s distraction. It’s part of the con artist in her, it’s the magician in her. She’s distracting, so don’t catch on to her secrets (Laughs). 

Is there a specific scene that you’re most proud of this season as an actor?

I think the scene when Georgia is on the other side of the door with Ginny before everything happens and Georgia thinks she’s hopefully talking her off a ledge. To me, it was personally just a really, really hard thing to do because of the subject matter, especially because now I have a daughter, so it amplifies the emotions even more. And I’m already a pretty big emotions person, so I didn’t think I could have any more emotions (Laughs), but lo and behold, here they are. So that scene was hard, but I was also proud of Georgia in that moment because it’s one of the first scenes where we see a little bit of change from her where she doesn’t make that moment about her. She’s aware that she needs to put her daughter first in that moment, and she puts her first in a new way that we’ve never seen before, and that I’m really proud of Georgia for. 

With Georgia being on house arrest for most of this season, how did you navigate working with limited surroundings and did you ever find it challenging?

We’ve known Georgia for so many years now. Georgia is playing chess with her environment. She’s manipulating, she’s controlling, she’s four steps ahead. Now Georgia’s on house arrest. She’s stuck to the confines of her home. So this whole season, we sort of see Georgia as this caged animal, we’ve never seen her like this. She’s hopeless, she’s helpless, she’s depressed, she’s drunk, she’s grasping for anything. She’s still trying to protect her family at all costs, even though she barely has a family left. And I actually think it helped inform her character because I think the devastation had to be this extreme for Georgia to start to change. I think Georgia being such an extreme person, the consequences had to be equally as extreme in order for it to rattle her enough to see outside of herself and see all of the pain and trauma she’s caused her family and the community. 

Once Paul left, it was clear that Georgia lost all feelings for him, even when he returned for a bit when he thought she was pregnant. Before that, do you think Georgia actually loved Paul?

I do think she did. However, what we always have to keep in mind with Georgia is that Georgia’s tool belt is so limited, and the examples that Georgia grew up with aren’t wonderful. I think the way we receive love and the way we give love is from a really early age, it’s learned, and I don’t think that’s something Georgia ever really learned how to receive love or give love in the ways that we conventionally would like to receive and give love and everybody wants to receive and give love. So I think Georgia it has a little bit of arrested development, especially in the romance department, but to Georgia’s point of view, she very much loves Paul. Yes, absolutely. Until he wrongs her and then he’s dead to her. Never again. There’s no coming back. 

As the actress who plays Georgia, do you think she should have gone to prison for murder or are you happy she got off?

I’m so happy with the balance that they struck of being on house arrest, going to jail, then going back to jail. The way we arrived there is slightly devastating. I feel bad for Georgia that she is realizing what her children are capable of and where they learned that from, quite obviously. So Georgia’s gonna have a lot of shame she’s gonna have to deal with there. But at the same time, she’s still Georgia, so hey, we’re happy we’re off. We’re going home, the kids are home. It’s a win-win. I think Georgia also finds it very refreshing, this woman who’s held all of these secrets for 30 years of her life, every single secret she’s held is out in the open and the entire world has heard it. So it’s sort of liberating, but then again, the other shoe drops and she has to now deal with the ramifications of what have her children done. 

What was your reaction to the Georgia’s pregnant cliffhanger, and do you think Joe or Paul is the father?

I was excited. It feels like a really fun callback to season one when the girls are in the car talking about Barry is kind of cute for a boy. I was pretty shocked though. I should have seen it coming. Georgia has that whole monologue about milk, and I was like, “Sarah [Lampert, creator], why are we talking about milk so much?” And she goes, “You’ll see, you’ll see.” “And I was like, OK, we got to trust the process.” Lo and behold, we trust the process. It all became very clear. I love the cliffhanger. I think it’s a fantastic ending, the irony based off Georgia having her false pregnancy, the tangled web she’s going to weave, and now having to tell both partners she’s been intimate with this season, not to mention having to tell her children. So it’s certainly going to make for a very interesting season four. 

Since the show’s already been renewed for a fourth season, what are your hopes for Georgia next season?

I’m hoping that Georgia is a phoenix rising from the ashes. I hope she continues to be the resilient woman that we’ve seen. I want her to continue working on her relationship with her children. I think we’re so close and we have made progress, but there’s so much more room for improvement, and it will continue to be slow. But I’m hoping Georgia continues to stay self-aware, trying to be as honest as possible, but you can’t teach this dog too many new tricks, I think. I also would like to learn more about Georgia’s family and see more of these generational cycles that she’s been breaking. And I want Ginny and Austin to thrive and find happiness and not resent each other for these decisions at the end of season three. 

Overall, what are you most excited for fans to see this season?

I’m excited for fans to see Ginny and Georgia take a page out of each other’s books. It’s a real role reversal this season, and it’s a really fun ride. 

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Season three of Ginny & Georgia is currently streaming on Netflix, and check out The Hollywood Reporter‘s interview with star Antonia Gentry and creator Sarah Lampert.