Betty Gilpin Explains Powerful Sex Scenes on ‘Three Women’: ‘Felt More like a Vessel for the Real Story Instead of Some Algorithm Box Check’

Betty Gilpin first major gig after bit parts as the victim of the week in assorted “Law & Order’s” was in “Nurse Jackie.” As Dr. Carrie Roman, Gilpin described her experience in her 2022 memoir, “All the Women in My Brain,” as “while a dream come true, was a constant frantic tap dance between the two gendered peanut galleries” of the misogynist tone the series took in later seasons and connecting with writers Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch.

“The first big TV job I auditioned for, I was told that getting naked on camera was the necessary toll to pay if I wanted the part,” she continued.

Betty Gilpin first major gig after bit parts as the victim of the week in assorted “Law & Order’s” was in “Nurse Jackie.” As Dr. Carrie Roman, Gilpin described her experience in her 2022 memoir, “All the Women in My Brain,” as “while a dream come true, was a constant frantic tap dance between the two gendered peanut galleries” of the misogynist tone the series took in later seasons and connecting with writers Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch.

“The first big TV job I auditioned for, I was told that getting naked on camera was the necessary toll to pay if I wanted the part,” she continued.

Flahive and Mensch then went on to create the canceled-too-soon women’s wrestling comedy “GLOW,” which served as Gilpin’s breakout role. She played Debbie Eagan, former soap star turned new mom struggling with her body being a vessel for nourishment of her baby and not her own anymore. It’s through professional wrestling that she was able to feel ownership of her body again.

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“I’m back in my body and I’m using it for me. I feel like a goddamn superhero,” she exclaims in a Season 3 episode.

Using her body to provide new insight into her compelling characters has been a recurring theme throughout Gilpin’s work. In Gilpin’s latest project, the long-awaited adaptation of Lisa Taddeo’s 2019 non-fiction book “Three Women,” she plays a similarly dissatisfied wife and mother whose husband won’t touch her. Set in Bible-belt middle America, Gilpin’s Lina suffers physically from fibromyalgia and endometriosis but emotionally from shame. 

When Taddeo proxy Gia (Shailene Woodley) comes to town looking for women to profile about their sex lives — the other titular women are Sloan (DeWanda Wise), a polyamorous wife and mother, and Maggie (Gabrielle Creevy), who was groomed into a sexual relationship with her high school teacher — Lina feels broken open. Lina relishes in being able to talk about what she’s feeling in a kind of consciousness-raising meeting of local women Gia puts together as she searches for subjects for her book. “Can I please tell your love story?” Gia implores Lina, because Lina’s journey is ultimately a love story about herself. The reemergence of her high school sweetheart, Aidan (Austin Stowell), whom she begins a clandestine affair with doesn’t hurt, either. But when she divulges this to the group, she’s shamed for being a bad wife and mother.