Rob Delaney breaks down his favorite ‘Dying for Sex’ scenes

Rob Delaney is cool just being Neighbor Guy.

“I don’t overthink it,” the Dying for Sex actor tells Entertainment Weekly. “It becomes funnier because he is a very important part of the story yet he remains Neighbor Guy.”

Dying for Sex follows the final chapter of Molly Kochan’s (Michelle Williams) life. After being in remission, Molly discovers that her cancer has returned — and this time, it is incurable. Taking her life into her own hands, she gets out of her unhappy marriage, asks her best friend, Nikki Boyer (Jenny Slate), to be her caretaker, and decides to explore her sexuality. Part of that exploration involves her neighbor, played by Delaney, and the two go from despising one another to developing a deep bond.

The standout limited series is known for its impeccable balance of top-tier humor and deep sadness, and that includes Delaney’s performance. We spoke to the actor about his favorite scenes, one that is laugh-out-loud funny and the other an emotional and vulnerable moment between him and Williams’ Molly.

Nikki and Neighbor Guy stand in the rain

Toward the end of the series, Molly sends Nikki back to her apartment to collect everything she needs in her hospital bed, including Neighbor Guy. The rare scene between the two pillars of Molly’s life delivered heartfelt emotional beats and great physical comedy. They are rushing to get to the hospital, but step outside to see Nikki’s car getting towed. Not to mention, this all happens in the pouring rain.

Neighbor Guy does all he can to stop the officer from taking the car, including climbing on top of it. “It had a lot of physical comedy in it and that was really fun,” he says. “They added rain so it could be more visible for the camera, so we’re soaking wet. I’m jumping up on a car and threatening the traffic officer. I did not succeed.”

Delaney credits creators Kim Rosenstock and Elizabeth Meriwether with incredible writing, but loves how this scene allowed the actors to play. “That was quite freeing and fun to shoot,” he says. Working with the pouring rain and figuring out how he would get up on the car had to be figured out on the day. “You gotta time it to get to the right place to do the funny thing,” he says about how the lines and physical comedy work together.

The actor, known for his comedic roles in projects including Catastrophe and the Deadpool film series, knows how powerful physicality is in storytelling. Calling our bodies “animalistic and raw,” Delaney uses the body to make people laugh the same way a cleverly written joke will.

“We think we’re so smart with our big, dumb frontal lobes and words are going to be the way we unlock laughter from people, but, I mean, there’s a reason people love the Three Stooges, Charlie Chaplin, and Buster Keaton,” he adds.

Before they get out into the rain, though, the characters hit an important emotional beat. Nikki is battling with her sister about choosing to be there for Molly, a decision that also caused the end of her relationship, but it’s Neighbor Guy who reminds her that what she is doing for her best friend is incredible.

“[He] is consciously, verbally appreciative of all that Nikki does for Molly,” he says, “They both understand that the other fulfills a very necessary role [for Molly]. There’s genuine respect there, if not an organic and inevitable friendship.”

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Molly and Neighbor Guy say goodbye

“I’ll never forget Molly and Neighbor Guy’s time in the hospital,” Delaney says about the couple’s final scene.

Molly spends one last night with Neighbor Guy in her hospital room, which is a far cry from where they began. “They annoy each other as cohabitants of the same hallway. He’s like graphically offensive to her with his eating noises and slovenly nature, and he considers her just as annoying,” he says about where viewers meet them. Getting to see them loved up in that hospital bed is a testament to their journey.

“There’s just such a playfulness, tenderness, and a falling in loveness in that scene,” Delaney says, “You’re realizing their relationship could go quite a bit further if Molly were not dying.”

Set in the “sacred environment” of Molly’s hospital room, the pair share their love for one another. “Yes, physically, but more important than that, their communication is a lot deeper. It’s almost like she’s charging his battery for a long life after Molly with all the special stuff she’s learning and absorbing as she gets ready to die,” he says.

An affair with your neighbor could be considered a bad idea, but for these two, it enriches their lives. Molly finds someone who accepts the harsh realities of her diagnosis and still chooses to join her for whatever is ahead. In a similar vein, Neighbor Guy starts to see how much he isn’t embracing what life has to offer through her vigor for living fully in her final chapter.

The dynamic works because Williams and Delaney fully commit to bringing the robust and complex dynamic to life. They needed to trust each other to be incredibly vulnerable in that hospital bed, just as much as when their characters explored different kinks.

“I feel really lucky because Michelle and I got along well pretty quickly,” he says. “I couldn’t have asked for a better or more generous scene partner. At least on this job, it felt like we were cut from the same cloth and ready to hit the ground running.”

Developing that trust within their work was helpful during the emotional final scene. “We spent some time in that hospital room talking about our goals for it and what we felt it meant,” he shares, looking back.

The intimacy they develop is evidence of how physicality can lead to deeper intimacy — the very core of Molly and Neighbor Guy’s relationship evolution. Viewers can see the impact of how Molly views the world in how they both open up. “It’s a lot easier for people to go home from a bar with someone they meet and have sex than it can be to admit something from the heart you might not have thought you were going to say,” Delaney observes.

Looking ahead

Delaney hopes Neighbor Guy continues to flourish after his time with Molly. “Molly dies, which is terrible and that hurts him a lot, but she really gave him some remarkable gifts. Their relationship has ended in a physical sense, but it will continue to affect him, and that’s a beautiful thing,” he says.

As for what the actor is walking away with — that’s an important reminder about our friends. “What I observed between Molly and Nikki is the beauty of friendship in adulthood, and how important that is,” he explains. “Love your friends. Tell them you love them, help them, accept help from them, and nurture them because those relationships can save your life.”