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Apr 01, 2021 By Laura Studarus

Cristin Milioti has played an accidental time traveler in Palm Springs, a cancer survivor on the FX show Fargo, and even the titular mother on How I Met Your Mother. But right now, she’s just trying to collect her thoughts as her dog Rupert frantically paws his bed. “So sorry, my dog is trying to find the perfect spot,” she laughs, before playfully conceding that she’s been upstaged by her four-legged best friend, and angling the camera to better show off his Muppet-like grin.

Her rescue dog is one of the things that’s keeping her happy right now, especially given that many face-to-face interactions are still several months away. Like everyone, it’s something that Milioti has been thinking about. If we’re lucky, maybe all our Zoom burnout will lead to a desire for more real-life connection.

I listen to music exclusively when I’m on the subway, and I would look around and everyone would be on their phones,” she says. “The thing that I thought a lot about during this time was ‘I hope that doesn’t get ratcheted up even more, because we’re so used to it now.’ One of my favorite things is when you’re on a subway and you have a weird connection with someone, or a kid in a stroller, and you make faces back and forth. I hope we don’t lose that.”

It’s the complex nature of human interactions that informs Milioti’s new series, Made for Love. The dark comedy (premiering today on HBO Max) tells the story of Hazel Green (Milioti), an impulsive young woman who marries a tech billionaire after their first date. Ten years later, she’s a 30-something, depressed trophy wife, isolated in a high-tech compound with only her emotionally distant husband (Billy Magnussen) for company. However, his only interests are food replacements, rating their sexual interactions, and pushing his Google-like company’s newest innovation, the ‘Made For Love’ chip, which allows couples to see, hear, and feel all her emotions. But after a dolphin-thwarted suicide attempt (yes, you read that right) turns into a watery escape, Green is able to reconnect with her college best friend, estranged father (Ray Romano) and his sex doll turned life companion. However, there’s a wrinkle—she’s been unwillingly chipped, and her late coming of age is happening in full view of the husband she’s trying to escape.

It was the absurdist Mad Libs-style plot-points that captured the actor’s attention. Along the way, the series explores deeper questions about love, connection and the different relationships we share. But it often takes the most unexpected routes to get there.

“I had no idea where it was going!” Milioti says. “I thought she was so fascinating. Hazel goes through so much. Ultimately, there are three different versions of this woman, her Stepford performance within a performance. The way she’s had to exist for 10 years, almost like robotic, choking down what she actually feels. And then sort of returning to this feral dirt kid self that she tried so hard to escape. Then the third self which is her actual self, which she has no grasp on.”

The excitement of playing another convention-busting, complicated woman didn’t escape Milioti. Although this is the first project she’s carried, she has nothing but effusive praise for her costars. She excitedly recounts working longtime theater friend Magnussen, who she sings a spine-chillingly creepy version of Mickey and Sylvia’s “Love is Strange” in the opening episode, and Romano, who takes his everyman likeability to a darker place. She even found chemistry acting with her life-sized sex-doll costar, a connection she was unprepared to experience.

“When we first started working with her we were like, ‘oh my god there’s a doll,” she laughs. “But then she began to actually become a cast member. And like we treated her with respect. She bore witness to it all.”

Ultimately, she describes filming as a rare experience where she was encouraged to play with a sense of youthful abandon.

“It felt a little like being a kid,” she says. “I’d use my parents’ camcorder and we’d make like little weird movies in the backyard. And obviously, this is a different level of budget, but there were moments where I would look around. All of us were those 12-year-old kids, and now we’re on a set in Hollywood, and you’re dunking me in a tank with like a CGI dolphin!”

Even while waiting to make her next move, Milioti remains optimistic. After starting her career on and Off-Broadway in acclaimed shows Once and Lazarus, she’s once again embracing music. (“Not to sound like a refrigerator magnet, but sometimes when I begin to lose faith in us as a species I will like to hear a certain song and I will be like, oh, we are capable of such greatness,” she says.) After releasing a haunting cover of Bon Iver’s “715 Creeks” earlier this year, she promises there’s more on the way. But outside of work, she’s just excited for the opportunity to reconnect to the world.

“It has been a real spiritual earthquake for sure,” she says. “Obviously, this has been a horrendous time. But I’m hopeful. People have really had to reckon with systems that have been in place that have harmed everyone. We have had to reckon with our own relationships or trauma or history. I’ve gone for so many masked walks to just get myself outside and to hear leaves rustling, and hear birds, and remind myself that I am part of a bigger world. I think it’s easy to get lost in your own bullshit when it’s just you. I really miss people, and I’ve been lucky enough that I’ve been able to see people safely. But I’m really excited for that to come back.”

Behind her, finally settled, Rupert lets out a sigh of contentment.