Exclusive:Sofia Black-D’Elia on Single Drunk Female: ‘Every so often, I find myself playing Adriana from The Sopranos’

“I know that some actors are sort of turned off by that,” says Sofia Black-D’Elia of Single Drunk Female’s second season. She’s not talking about anything in particular about the show itself – a comedy that follows Black-D’Elia’s character Sam, a young journalist working towards her sobriety – but rather the fact it returned for a second series at all, and the fact that this now means Sam is the character Black-D’Elia has played most across her career. 

Black-D’Elia recently joined NationalWorld to talk about Single Drunk Female’s upcoming second series. She explained some of the choices behind her performance in some key scenes for Sam, from a birthday party reunion to a private breakdown, before going on to discuss the importance of Single Drunk Female’s ensemble more widely.

Finally, Black-D’Elia pointed to some of her creative influences across her own career, explaining how her performances are shaped by both The Sopranos and Gilmore Girls, before talking about some of her hopes for how Single Drunk Female is received and experienced by viewers. 

So, with Series 2, Sam has become one of the characters you’ve played longest across your career. What’s that been like, what’s your experience of that longevity?

It's really fun, I really love it. I know that some actors are sort of turned off by that – they feel like, you know, once you find the thing, then get in and get out, but I really love finding new things within this person. Deepening the world and honing the tone, all that stuff, is really fun for me – season one felt like we were all in this weird blender of ideas, trying to figure out what the thing is, so then to come back and be like, ‘okay, we now have more of a shape of it. Where do we go from here?’ was really great.

You’ve spoken before about finding the balance of the serious subject with the comic tone difficult to approach at first. Has that become any easier?

I feel like it's always the challenge of it, but it's also the thing that keeps me coming back with a lot of fire and excitement about the project. So maybe I'm just inventing that it's challenging, and it's actually all fine! It's definitely possible. But yeah, there are certain episodes and certain scenes that feel particularly like they lean in one direction more than the other, and it's always trying to kind of wrangle it back to the centre. But I really do love that there's so much work to be done for me in that way. But yeah, it's definitely still hard.

There’s a six-month gap between the end of Series 1 and the beginning of Series 2. Do you find yourself thinking a lot about what happens to Sam offscreen before you start things up again, or not particularly?

I probably should have been thinking about that more, now that you say that! I was always like “did I have breakfast? Am I going to be too hungry in this scene?” No, I think I did think about that. I think the wonderful thing about Sam, that sort of alleviates some pressure for me, is she's very present now that she's sober. So she's very open to everyone and every moment and very sensitive, but she's not a very reflective person – I think as evidenced by her behaviour, where she's sort of a ferret? She does something and then immediately forgets what she learned from that experience and does it again, which is, I think, the way that a lot of us move through the world. So, what I liked about where we started her in this season was everything's going great – “I have this amazing job, I’m alive, I'm fine” –not reflecting on how hard it was for her to get to that point. So that does remove the pressure, for me at least, of fully realising what all that time means.

It’s interesting what you’re saying there about Sam being very present – how much of your own performance comes down to choices you’re making in the moment?

There's a structure there, that we all creatively talked about beforehand. “Okay, it's really important for this, this, this and this to be told within this little tiny half hour window.” But then on the day, there are always moments that I try to find – and it often comes out of my scene partner, and what they bring to the table. I'm very lucky, because I have a lot of great ones in this show, but also because they're all really, really different kinds of performers. On a day where I work with Jon Glaser [who plays Sam’s boss Nathaniel], we might find some really weird comedic thing that wasn't on the page. And then on days with Ally Sheedy [who plays Sam’s mother Carol], we can find something deeper and more specific for that mother-daughter relationship that we hadn't really initially thought of coming into it. So for me, it comes out of a lot of my other cast mates.

I always really enjoy the scenes Sam shares with James – can you tell me a little about their reunion at the top of the series? What’s Garrick like as a scene partner?

Garrick is so wonderful. He's unbelievably sweet, and so it's very easy for me in those scenes to just feel like I'm constantly messing up, and making him not want to be in the meeting, or not want to come back, and centre myself in his drama because he's such a kind and lovely human being. So that's a fun dynamic for us. It gets trickier when – which happens at my birthday – he's on the offensive, because it always just feels like the nicest person in our cast is being the sort of villain right now. But of course he's not! He, I think, brings his humanity to those moments, so it never feels so harsh, and you do want them to be able to be friends and mend whatever this thing is. So yeah, I really love those scenes too, because they feel messy and real and complicated.

At the end of episode 2, there’s this bit where Sam is stressed out, she’s sat in the closet, she’s singing I’m Sorry Miss Jackson. I was curious about the choice of that song in particular – where did that come from, why did that feel right for Sam?

I was trying to remember recently, all the other songs that had come up before that. But originally in the script, it was a kind of sweet emotional song – I think something that was more on the nose for that moment. What we had talked about was, well, she's already in that place – and I think this is again about wrangling the thing to the centre – but she's already in that place. We can feel that from her. What if we go in the opposite direction, and it's like completely ridiculous and has absolutely nothing to do with the scene? Maybe that would be more fun. 

On the day, I remember singing three or four different songs, because it was going to depend on what we got clearance for. I think there was like some Third Eye Blind in the mix? Anything that would have been really catchy, and on the radio a lot, at the time when she was drinking made sense to me. Because what Olivia her sponsor says is sing a catchy song – she kind of throws it out, and Sam latches on to this one morsel of an idea. I just felt like it would make sense that the catchy song to her that's always stuck in her head is something that she heard a lot when she was out at a bar or whatever. I'm so happy it was Miss Jackson in the end, because I think it's so weird and funny.

On a slightly broader note, what would you say are your big creative influences?

When I'm making something, it feels like I just am a magnet for whatever I need to be consuming for the project, whether it's a book I find myself drawn to or a film I need to watch when I go home at the end of the day on set to unwind, it all feels additive. But generally, I think where my sensibility comes from is what I watched growing up and what I consumed a lot of: The Sopranos and Gilmore Girls. Every once in a while, I find myself like “I'm doing Adriana, I need to pull back” or “I'm doing Lauren Graham and I need to pull back” because those are the two women that, comedically, I think had a lot of influence on me. 

Finally then, just to wrap everything up, what do you hope people take from the show?

I hope that people find it funny and comforting. That's the kind of shit that I'm drawn to the most right now. The bonus is always when someone that's either in recovery, or knows someone that's in recovery, or has a mother/daughter relationship like this one, or whatever, that maybe it feels very true to them. That's the best outcome for me, but baseline I just hope people find it mostly okay.

Yeah, I’d say it’s mostly okay.

[Laughs] Okay, perfect.

Single Drunk Female Season 2 will be available to stream on Disney+ from Wednesday 31 May.

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