Crashing HBO: Madeline Wise on sex, failure, and that shocking twist

Madeline Wise, Crashing HBO’s newest leading lady, knows you’ve got questions about that bonkers street fight.

Pete Holmes is in over his head. Early on in Crashing Season 3, Pete met a bold, fashionable force of nature named Kat. Played by Madeline Wise, Kat is a woman who lives life with a tart kind of gusto, eating up the world with her enthusiasm and vigor. While shopping one day in a hip vintage boutique, Kat quickly caught the eye of Pete (Pete Holmes). A day of afternoon delights ensued.

The two build a curious bond, and Kat seems like a great girlfriend, but also a pretty awesome lady. I’d totally hang out with her. Yet, in the latest episode of the series, entitled “The Viewing Party”, Kat’s personality makes a sharp turn, morphing into something quite perplexing.

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As Kat slowly realizes that Pete has true feelings for his ex, Ali (Jamie Lee), she winds up like a Jack-in-the-Box of relationship anguish. After a night of drinking and Seth Meyers-ing, she unleashes her rage on Pete in the middle of a bustling city street. At first glance it would be easy to write off Kat’s outburst as the stereotypical actions of an irrational woman, but that would be dismissive of her perspective.

From taking risks to hard core sex scenes to emotional street fighting, we recently chatted with actress Madeline Wise about her experiences playing Kat on Crashing. And she’s definitely got some answers for you about that fight.

HR: How did you get involved with Crashing?

Madeline Wise: “My manager got me the audition, and Gayle Keller is the casting director [for Crashing], and I had never met her before. I went in and she asked how long I had been in New York, and I said six years, and she asked why she didn’t know me. [laughs] Then I got called back a couple weeks later and read with Pete and with Judah Miller who’s the show runner, and that was wonderful and lovely. Then I came in another time and spent about an hour with Pete just talking and just getting to know each other.

“This is my first TV show, so I was a little bit unproven or untested. And at some point in the midst of all of that, we decided to give them some more material. So I sent along these videos I’ve been making for the past couple years. I call them my ‘Trump Self Tapes’. Early on, even before he was the Republican nominee, when he was part of that insanely large pool of Republican candidates, I was reading the transcript of the debate. I couldn’t watch it. It was too gross to actually watch.

“And I was reading it and I got to the part when Trump was defensive about his small hands. He took a moment from the debate to talk about how he doesn’t have small hands, and I was reading it and thinking it was so insane to play out on a national stage. I thought that it felt like an audition side for Law and Order SVU. So for my own amusement, and for the amusement of my Facebook friends, I recorded myself recording it as if it were an audition. Then I just started doing it with lots of things that he said. I had like eight videos, and we sent them along to Judd and Pete so they could see what else I had to offer. So it was a bit of supplemental material.”

HR: Crashing is often about failing and taking risks in the pursuit of success, and Kat is so motivated to help Pete follow his passions. Shooting for creative success seems to be something that’s familiar to you personally. Can you elaborate on any other choices and risks you’ve taken in your career?

Madeline Wise: “The first thing that comes to mind is right after college I started a theater company with two friends. [Note: Wise is co-founder of New Saloon Theater in NYC.] So for six and a half years we’ve been making plays together and self-producing work together in New York City. We sort of realized very early on that no one else was going to give us a job right away, like right off the bat, as young people in New York.

“That work is so fulfilling and exciting and satisfying, but it’s also so hard. There’s always a risk of failure. You have to raise so much money and convince people to come out to the furthest reaches of Brooklyn to see your play. It always felt like we were swinging from vine to vine in terms of lining up projects and getting more opportunities for ourselves. It never felt super secure. Only in the last year or so does it feel like we slightly have our footing a little bit.”

HR: Kat has a complex and multifaceted persona. How did you access Kat’s inner life? 

Madeline Wise: “When I first read the sides and got the audition, I felt like I recognized her. Or I recognized myself in her. I say that knowing that’s a risky thing to say, because as you’ll see in episode 6, she gets a little unhinged. I’m not saying that I am Kat and Kat is me, but there are a lot of things that I identify with. For me, one of the most important things you can do as an actor is fully identify and empathize with your character. That’s always the tricky thing about playing a bad guy.

“A great deal of Kat is Pete and all the writers generously rewriting her a little bit around me or to play to my strengths. She was originally written as this like bodacious, sensual Italian with big boobs, big butt, and hips. And that’s not necessarily what my body or personality is like. So from the second meeting with Pete when we spent an hour talking to each other, Pete said, very sweetly, that he didn’t want to cannibalize my life, but he wanted to use some of these things so that Kat could feel like more of a real, three dimensional person.”

HR: “That’s a very Judd Apatow thing to do, right? Take elements of people’s real personalities and infuse them into story to make it feel more organic.”

Madeline Wise: “Totally. Especially because we do so much improvisation. There is a script, and we do stick to the script fairly much, but there is a degree of improvisation. So they figure that the more tethers they can have from the character to the person playing that character, the easier it will be to do truthful improvisation. So as an actor, you don’t have to remember all your given circumstances as you’re making shit up on the fly, which would be terrifying.”

HR: Your character does have a lot of sex and nudity within her story arc, and that type of performance can make performers – especially female performers – feel very vulnerable. HBO has recently added an on-set specialist to monitor sex scenes, but I’m not sure if that was the case for you on Crashing. You’re engaging in on-screen sex in multiple episodes – some that were directed by women and some that were directed by men. So how was it to film sex scenes with different directors? 

Madeline Wise: “We did work with Alicia [Rodis], who is the Intimacy Coordinator [for HBO], and she was wonderful. Every show with sex scenes should have that sort of person, and she herself is lovely and wonderful.

“In terms of different directors, everyone was so respectful. I have a lot of sex on this show! What’s funny is that my first day on set is the day that we shot the dressing room sex scene and the bathroom changing station sex scene, and I think it was just like everybody was respectful and very clear that no one may make jokes. We’re all at work. Anybody who makes any off-color comments will be removed from the set, and they will not be asked back. It was in a way that was almost shocking, because I would occasionally make little comments to lighten the mood to just sort of put myself at ease, and no one would even laugh at my jokes. I was like damn! [laughs] This is a tough crowd! But everyone was so invested in making sure that everyone was feeling safe and respected.”

HR: “That’s really wonderful.”

Madeline Wise. “Yeah! It’s so great, especially because Kat is so comfortable in her sexuality. Even when we were just in the sex shop at the Pleasure Chest, everyone was like ‘no jokes’ and ‘no horseplay’.”

HR: It’s probably better to go to that extreme than the other one. [laughs] That fight in the street between you and Pete in this most recent episode involves a whole different level of vulnerability. How did you guys approach that scene?

Madeline Wise: “Gosh. The thing that’s crazy about that scene is how long it is. And that’s one thing that I really love about what Judd does. He allows these things to keep rolling. You think that you’ve come to the end of the fight, you think it’s going to be over, and then I do the deaf voice.

“I’ve been thinking about this episode because I think you see this entirely different side of Kat, and I think it’s a little bit of a disappointing and horrifying side of Kat. But I also think that she is being vulnerable in a way that I can respect because she’s so disappointed and because she’s seeing her boyfriend being untruthful to her. She’s seeing Pete have feelings for Ali, and it’s so devastating to her. And unfortunately she gets too drunk and the only way she can articulate how she’s feeling about that is by bellowing in his face on Macdougal Street in front of the entire world.

“The thing that was so gratifying about filming that scene was that Judd and Pete and everybody were like, let’s dig deep into how this woman is feeling, and let’s not pull any punches. She’s wounded. She’s really really hurt. And she’s really angry, and she’s upset with herself too because this is how it always happens. This is how it goes with boyfriends. And I was really given the space to dig down into the depths of that anger and that sadness. They were so generous and willing to let me act up a storm in that street.

“It’s so exciting to see female rage that’s about relationships, because it often gets written off as a frivolous thing, and it’s not! It feels quotidian because we deal with relationships every day, but those are the things that make up a life, and those are the things that are important.”

HR: Kat is such a proponent of vision boards. What would you say is next for your own personal vision board?

Madeline Wise: “I’ve been talking about vision boards more than I ever have in my entire life. [laughs] I’m in LA right now, and it’s been a really fruitful and nice pilot season. I can’t talk about anything right now, but we’ve got some exciting projects on the vision board.”

Crashing airs Sundays at 10/9c on HBO.