After seven stunning seasons in the cutthroat business of publishing (and flipping from Team Josh to Team Charles every damn episode), Younger is coming to an end. I think actor Molly Bernard said it the best when we kicked off our chat this morning: “Where do I even begin?”
Bernard starred as the aggressively loveable publicist/social media whizz Lauren Heller in Younger, which returns to screens tonight on Stan.
“This season is so good,” Bernard told PEDESTRIAN.TV over Zoom. “We’re so excited to get it out to fans and for people to just lose their minds. It’s so good.”
Season 7 has a lot of twists and turns, according to Bernard. Not to mention the return of the will they, won’t they of Liza Miller (Sutton Foster) and her two love interests Josh (Nico Tortorella) and Charles Brooks (Peter Hermann).
Josh, or Charles? Josh? Charles. No, Josh. It never ends, but do we have to pick a side?
While I’ve got my money on Josh, Bernard feels differently.
“It’s boring!” she exclaimed, an opinion she admitted might be seen as ~ controversial ~.
“I’m sorry, I’ve never been a Team Charles or Team Josh. At one time I was Team Liza and I think that’s probably still the closest answer to me,” Bernard said.
“I just think the writing and the acting is so good, and I just think that when one of them – like, when Charles and Liza are together, I think ‘Oh, maybe this is good.’ But then they’ll cut to a mopey scene of Josh being all heartbroken because he’s not with Liza, so then I lean towards Team Josh.”
Relatable.
“I don’t know!” Bernard huffed.
Again, relatable.
The pointy love triangle aside, there’s still plenty of work-related drama to get through this season. Empirical? Millennial? Can these women keep the company they built? Questions, questions, questions. And what’s Lauren up to this season?
“I’m not going to lie,” Bernard began. “She descends from the ceiling. She has a fly-in entrance, so that’s grandeur.”
Sounds about right.
Lauren is simply on another level, and in season 7 she gets herself into quite the spicy pickle.
“There’s also a very fun, possible rekindling of an old flame, which happens later in the season,” she added. “And I can’t wait to see how that pans out.”
Across seven seasons, Bernard has donned an unreal amount of outfits as Lauren. Her favourite is the extremely Lauren rainbow pleather dress that she wore to Kelsey (Hilary Duff) and Thad (Dan Amboyer)’s engagement party.
“It was just this tiny dress that must’ve been the size of a bra and it had these rainbow multicoloured feathers and a glove to catch a hawk,” Bernard said.
“It was hawk-outdoor-gear meets birds of paradise and it was just the best.”
Presenting, the dress.
While Bernard didn’t keep the feathery fit, she did bring home a lush pair of yellow pumps a few seasons ago that she’s worn to Younger premieres and parties.
“I can get a little shy and a little nervous, but every time I wear those yellow shoes, I have a little bit of Lauren strength,” she said.
Saying goodbye to her character and the show has been “multi-layered”, to say the least. There was no wrap party or premiere because of the pandemic, there was “never one big group hug.”
“I think the reality of COVID – I think that was one of the hardest parts of saying goodbye to everyone. We all had different wrap days,” Bernard shared.
“It’s very bittersweet. We love each other so much and I’ve just loved being on this show, I’ve loved playing Lauren.”
Bernard said it’s been a great privilege to play Lauren, one of the first pansexual characters on American TV. As a queer person, Bernard is immensely proud of how Younger has represented queer characters through Lauren and Maggie (Debi Mazar).
“I think the show found a really unique and important way to represent the queer community – not through trauma and not through tokenisation, and I’m really proud that was the writer’s instinct to begin with,” she said.
At the end of our chat, I asked Bernard if she preferred being younger or older.
“I love getting older,” she answered, explaining that she spent most of her 20s flailing. “Thirty was my all time favourite age. I’d just met my partner, who I’d fallen madly in love with. I was realising that I was queer and that was wonderful and now we’re engaged.”
Older, it is.
The first four episodes of the seventh and final season of Younger premieres tonight, 6pm only on Stan.
On a final note, Bernard recently starred in her first ever film, Milkwater. No news yet if we’ll cop it in Australia, but we’ll keep you updated.
