‘Single Drunk Female’: Rebecca Henderson on Olivia Meeting Carol, Sam’s Sobriety & More

If you’re anything like us, you’ve been eagerly awaiting Sam’s (Sofia Black-D’Elia) mother, Carol (Ally Sheedy), and her sponsor, Olivia (Rebecca Henderson), interacting, and fortunately, that’s what’s coming in the February 17 episode of Single Drunk Female.

In “Look Me Up Sometime,” following Sam scoring a job interview in New York, she realizes how scary it is to write while sober. With this new opportunity, Carol is concerned that her daughter may need help, so she breaks a boundary and introduces herself to Olivia.

I love Olivia’s honesty — it’s refreshing to see on a TV show and also it makes perfect sense considering where she is in her recovery compared to the other characters.

Rebecca Henderson: She’s very straightforward, very blunt. When I was researching the character and researching just sponsors and recovery and everything, one of the best pieces of advice I got was from a sponsor who said that her own sponsor had said to her, “This is what works for me, and that’s basically all I can communicate to you. And if you don’t like it, you can find another sponsor. But all I can teach is what helped me get to this point.” And so that was really sort of the basis for Olivia with Sam.

How is Olivia feeling about Sam’s recovery at this point?

Six months is a serious point in recovery. That’s a big deal to get that chip.

How is Olivia feeling about her own recovery?

Certainly it is one day at a time, and I think the longer people are in recovery, they can forget that and that’s how people can slip up. So it’s important to be going to meetings and to be talking to people and having many sponsees and talking to your own sponsor. As the series goes on, Olivia and her wife (Madeline Wise) are planning to have a baby and she really needs to dig into her own tools to be able to navigate that with her wife.

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How is Olivia feeling about her marriage? Because they seem like the most stable couple on the show.

Yeah, I think they’re very supportive of each other. They love the baby talk to get through tense situations and I think their marriage is good. But I do think that Olivia is a workaholic and she probably works too much and spends too much time with her sponsees and needs to spend a little more time at home with her wife as she’s taking hormones.

It seems like that’s kind of a strain on the marriage, like when Olivia was inviting Sam to join for St. Patrick’s Day and Stephanie was saying no.

Yeah, I think she needs a break from the sponsees. You can imagine hearing somebody on the phone all the time with their sponsee, going through the same thing over and over again. It’s like what we went through during the pandemic hearing our partners loud on the phone somewhere nearby. It’s a little tiring.

And then also the sober party.

Yes, and I remember Stephanie opens the door with a huge glass of wine, which she’s really not supposed to do.

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We have to talk about that cat because he is amazing and also seems like the perfect cat for them to have too.

Yes. He may be based on my own cat who isn’t quite as large, but my cat is about 17 pounds and I think Josh was 32 pounds. He’s truly humongous, really well behaved.

What’s coming up with IVF?

Basically just the drama of taking the hormones and how that can affect people differently. There’s a lot of fear about impending motherhood and they’re also sort of working through choosing a sperm donor, which is really quite an experience ’cause when you’re on the sperm donor websites, you can see them as children, but you can’t see them as adults. So you get like an infant picture, a six-year-old picture and a 12-year-old picture, you can hear their voice and it can be can be pretty jarring and feel quite random.

Is there any worry about Olivia’s sobriety when it comes to taking this next step?

She’s very solid in her sobriety, so she’s definitely digging into the tools, but at least not in this season, there’s not a fear of her drinking. More so for Sam and the others.

Freeform/Danny Delgado

Olivia and Carol finally interact in the next episode. What can you preview about their conversations and their dynamic?

First of all, working with Ally Sheedy is a real dream come true. What an icon, really. And we had a very good time working together. Carol is, I think, very jealous of Olivia. She’s very jealous that Olivia’s having this relationship with Sam and I think she feels very self-conscious that Sam is often talking about her mother to her sponsor, which of course is true. So that’s sort of the beginning of how they end up speaking to each other.

Olivia has an idea of who Carol is through Sam, but what does Olivia think of her as they’re talking?

She’s probably like, “Wow, Sam was right. Everything she said is true.” But also, it’s sort of like therapy in a way. What matters the most is what Sam says to Olivia, it’s not necessarily the truth of what’s happening, but it is Sam’s experience. That’s the takeaway. And also Carol is a little jealous of Olivia’s success, having a Peabody award and being such a successful journalist. So there’s a lot of layers in the way she talks to me.

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Which member of the group do you think Olivia’s most worried about?

Definitely Sam, I would say. I think everyone else feels pretty solid, but I guess it happens all the time. So I guess you can’t ever be too sure.

What would you like to explore in a Season 2?

Motherhood and the parallels between our child and Carol and Sam. And I would like the audience to be able to see what Olivia’s bottom was and how she got sober and maybe even how she and Stephanie met.

Oh, I would love to see that.

Wouldn’t that be fun? Like a flashback. Maybe I’ve got longer hair or something and yeah, how we fell in love. That would probably be good.

Single Drunk Female, Thursdays, 10:30/9:30c, Freeform