1 Rachel Brosnahan didn’t think she was funny enough for the role of Midge. It’s hard to imagine anyone else as Miriam “Midge” Maisel—but Brosnahan wasn’t sure she was right for the part at first. “I spent my whole life being told I wasn’t funny. And I lost a lot of jobs because [casting directors] agreed,” she told Parade. Multiple comedy Emmy nominations (and one win) later, it’s safe to say everyone was wrong. 2 Her audition didn’t go as planned. Brosnahan thought she “ended her career” by messing up the heavy dialogue in her first audition. When she got the callback, things took an even worse turn. “I thought I had the plague, I was sweating. I was so sick, I couldn’t touch anybody. My feet were sweating so much I had to take my shoes off part of the way through the audition,” she told Vulture. 3 She landed the part with one stand-up trick. Casting Brosnahan was one of the easiest decisions show creator Amy Sherman-Palladino had to make. “Rachel [Brosnahan] was the only actress we saw who didn’t have a fear of stand-up,” Sherman-Palladino told Parade. “Stand-up is terrifying, and she came into the audition and knew to lean into the microphone. The moment she did that, we knew we’d found our girl.” 4 Midge is based on a real person. Show creator Amy Sherman-Palladino dreamt up the character with her father in mind. Like Midge, her dad Don Sherman was a comedian in 1950s New… Click below to read the full story from Esquire
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