There are many men important to Midge Maisel, but two are more important than any other. In The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season 4, Joel Maisel and Lenny Bruce will continue to influence – or at least try to influence – Midge. In an interview with PopCulture.com, actors Michael Zegen and Luke Kirby teased the new directions for two of the men in Midge’s life.
Zegen stars as Joel, Midge’s ex-husband whose decision to leave her was the catalyst at the start of the show. As the series went on, the tension between Midge (Rachel Brosnahan) and Joel eased while they followed diverging paths. In Season 3, Joel found a new way into the entertainment world after bombing as a comic. He now owns a club in New York’s Chinatown.
Videos by PopCulture.com
Joel’s path isn’t so “cut and dry,” Zegen explained. While some might grow up knowing exactly what they want to do, Joel had a “hard time” finding what he was meant to do. “It took him a few tries, but he found it,” Zegen said. “I think originally, he had his sights set on being a standup comedian, whether that was a realistic goal of his that remains to be seen because you have to write your own material at some point. Clearly, it didn’t work out, but he still wanted to be a part of that world.”
This is what makes Joel’s story relatable to the audience, according to Zegen. He has acting friends who became agents or acting teachers during their search for roles they would still enjoy. “That’s what happens, if something doesn’t work out, you find something else perhaps parallel to that world that brings you the same kind of joy,” Zegen said.
Joel could have been a character who appeared in the pilot and was never heard from again, but Zegen was surprised that creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and executive producer Daniel Palladino found ways to keep Joel in Midge’s story. It’s actually what attracted him to the character. “They spent a lot of time delving into his character, and watching him grow and watching him evolve and watching his relationship with Midge evolve,” Zegen said. “And I mean, I think it’s almost like just as important an aspect of the show and to Midge as comedy is.”
Although the show is set in the late 1950s and early 1960s, there are very few real people involved. This means Kirby has a unique position on the show as the legendary Lenny Bruce, who offers Midge helpful words of advice whenever she needs it. Kirby’s Bruce will be back in Season 4. “It’s been more fun than anything else,” Kirby said of playing Bruce. “I mean, I think that Amy and Dan have done a really good job at balancing out how we measure that responsibility. I think that they do feel duty-bound to the historic Lenny Bruce’s legacy.”
Kirby’s standup scenes feature real Bruce jokes, but he still has some freedom when he’s not on the stage in the show since it’s a work of fiction. “It’s a great fortune to be freed of having to be too specific, certainly in the way that you would with a biopic, in terms of timeline and the specificities around getting everything down pat,” Kirby said. “So that’s been just a lucky privilege, to not have to adhere to that so strictly, but at the same time, I think that we’ve tried to maintain certainly in the routines that I do, those are always verbatim from live performances that Lenny Bruce did.”
Season 4 finally debuts on Prime Video on Feb. 18, with the first two episodes. The first episode has scenes at Coney Island, with the production bringing the 1960s back to life. “That’s the beauty of Maisel,” Zegen said. “You still had these hundreds of extras, everybody’s dressed in perfect 1960s garb and you’re on set, and you just feel like you’re in that time period because everybody else is.”
