Sex/Life, which premieres its 8-episode first season June 25 on Netflix, takes the tried and true trope of the salacious love triangle one step further. Based on the novel 44 Chapters About 4 Men by B. B. Easton, the new series centers on the brilliant and restless Billie (Sarah Shahi, Person of Interest), who loves her life as a wife and mother but also aspires to return to the days of her carefree youth.
That yearning manifests itself in fantasies about her ex-boyfriend Brad (Adam Demos, UnREAL), which she writes down in a journal that her husband Cooper (Mike Vogel, Fantasy Island) finds. From there, a tumultuous tug of war ensues that changes the lives of all three for good.
Shahi spoke to Screen Rant about the connection she felt with her character from early on, and what each man in her life provides that makes them invaluable.
You breathe such life into Billie. There's two totally opposite sides of her, and yet you make them feel like one person. How do you do to connect with her, outside of reading the script and talking to the showrunner?
Sarah Shahi: There was a lot about Billie, when I initially read her, that I felt like I could relate to. She was dynamite in a box, and she had an appetite for life that was just larger than Texas. I just felt like, come hell or high water, I had to be her.
I myself am a mom; I'm a mom of three amazing kids. As Billie sometimes says, motherhood is complex, it's messy - and you can be a great mom, but then also still very much wonder who you are. Wonder did you lose yourself, and question the choices that you make. I've been in long-term relationships where the same questions have somewhat popped up.
For me, there was a lot of humanity that I found in Billie. And upon talking to a lot of my girlfriends, we were all saying those same things that you don't quite have the guts to say out loud. But this show really has the courage, and this character has the courage the way Stacy wrote her, to go out there and question it. She's a character who has it all, but it's not enough. It's not enough, so she goes out there and she tries to get it.
Everyone loves a juicy love triangle, which the show definitely has. But I do like how it's reflective of more than just good boy vs. bad boy. What do you think pulls Billie in those two different directions, towards Brad and towards Cooper?
Sarah Shahi: With Cooper, she has what she wanted with Brad, which was stability and comfort and this real sense of being taken care and of being heard. It's all the softer side of emotion and love that she wanted. He's able to provide a life, stability, all those great things.
And then you've got Brad, With Brad, she even says it's the adrenaline; it's that love bubble rush. It's that unexplainable thing. Brad is like a drug for her. You've got one hit or one drink or one taste, and you're just constantly chasing that high again. He is her high.
I think in a perfect world, if she was able to marry the two, that's where she would land. Because she wants both, for very obvious and understandable reasons, in my opinion.
Sex/Life premieres all 8 episodes of its first season June 25 on Netflix.