Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard Are to Die for inDeath Becomes Her.Meet Broadway's Killer Comedic Duo (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard at the opening night of ‘Death Becomes Her’ on Broadway.Photo:Bruce Glikas/Getty

Bruce Glikas/Getty

Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel.Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick.Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon. And now,Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard.

The two actresses have officially cemented their names among the pantheon of legendary comedic Broadway duos with their performances inDeath Becomes Her, the hilarious new musical which opened to rave reviews on Thursday, Nov. 21 at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New York City.

Based on the 1992 Robert Zemeckis dark comedy starringMeryl StreepandGoldie Hawn, the stage show follows longtime frienemies Madeline Ashton (Hilty) and Helen Sharp (Simard), whose bitter feud gets deadly when the two take a mysterious potion that gives them eternal youth and beauty.

Ahead of opening night, PEOPLE caught up with Hilty and Simard to discuss their roles, their friendship and how they’ve found deeper meaning in the musical’s themes.

PEOPLE: Congratulations on all the success. What has being a part of this show meant to you?

HILTY:People throw around the term “dream come true” a lot. I’ve been known to do that myself, and not that I didn’t mean it before, but I really, really mean it with this job because it really has been so satisfying. The script is genius. The songs are incredible. The costumes are stunning. There’s just a magic to it where you can feel how uniquely special it is.SIMARD:It’s almost hard to stay in your body when you think about it, because it can feel like it’s happening to another person.HILTY:I find myself every day going, “When’s the other shoe going to drop? This is too good to be true.“SIMARD:For me, to have this opportunity as two women is really thrilling professionally, personally, especially in the macrocosm of theater. It’s almost as if we’reTiny Fey and Amy Poehler. I hope it’s the start of long, long collaboration.

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InDeath Becomes Heryou give us a glimpse of people Meryl and Goldie created and then take those roles to a different place. When you approached the work, were there things Meryl and Goldie did that you said, “I like that choice, I’m going to do it as well?“HILTY:You definitely look at it and say, “What are the things that I can pay homage to and what are the things that I can give an essence of?” It’s that fine line.SIMARD:It’s very good for any actor who’s faced with something like this, or in general, to remember that you have nothing to prove; you only have something to share. And what you’re going to share is yourself and pieces of yourself.HILTY:We’re also not here to mimic their performance. Nobody can, nor should they.SIMARD:Right, this isn’tForbidden Broadway. And to those who come after Megan and I, they shouldn’t imitate us. Everyone has something special and unique about them, and that informs the character and makes it special and unique to you.

The storytelling is so satisfying for fans of the film. It really scratches the nostalgia itch while also offering so many new things to fall in love with.SIMARD:I like the word “exaggerated” because it is a theatrical experience, it’s not a film. And so we’re not recreating the film, but we also have a mandate to make it theatrical. Hopefully we do it in a way that even when it’s the most exaggerated with broad brush strokes, it still resonates as being honest.HILTY:I always says, this is the same story told through the lens of, “What would happen if they were singing and dancing while they were trying to kill each other?”

What was that process like discovering the rapport between these two women?HILTY:Comedy is so deceptively difficult. It’s equal parts math and magic. There’s a rhythm and a timing and a certain something that you can’t really describe in words. And I don’t think people really understand how difficult it is, because when it’s working, you shouldn’t feel the work at all.SIMARD:You know that moment inJurassic Parkwhere Jeff Goldblum has the water on his hand and the water goes this way, and the next time it could go this way? Well, to Megan’s point about math, boy, it infuriates me on the stage when, if the science is not right or the math is not right, then the joke doesn’t work. So it really is that specific.HILTY:I feel blessed to have a partner in Jennifer. We have a really special understanding of that math and magic. And like she said, it really takes partners who are listening to each other.SIMARD:It was easy to find the comedy with Megan because we just listen to one another. We talk with our eyes on stage and we’re very, in my opinion, extremely generous with one another.

These roles are also both incredibly physical.HILTY:It was super fun to figure it all out at first.SIMARD:And we can’t give away the secrets, but the magic and illusions are quite active for us both.HILTY:But the real job is in the maintenance of it and that’s something people won’t really understand. We’re working hard behind the scenes to make it happen!SIMARD:Megan is charged with having to do incredible work in that regard, in my opinion. It’s really thrilling and we have to treat ourselves like athletes. I mean, Megan and I do so much to stay healthy, fit and ready for service.HILTY:If there is a stock in Epsom salts, buy now. Because wow, we are going to be using a lot of it during the course of the show.

Should we say nice things about Christopher Sieber?HILTY:[Sarcastically] Nahhh.SIMARD:[Dryly] Pass.HILTY:[Dismissively] Next question!BOTH:[Laugh]SIMARD:No, Chris is truly the best.PEOPLE:He plays the role Bruce Willis made famous on screen and it’s wild how much he feels like Bruce up there.SIMARD:He really does. We actually watched him on stage yesterday — he didn’t know we were watching him just sort something out — and he was so focused and we were just, “Look at him go!” He’s just so lovely and kind and such a sweet man, which comes across in his Ernest. I can’t wait for people to see him try to navigate us two crazies, because so much of his job in this show is listening and reacting.HILTY:And handing us shovels.SIMARD:He’s very good at handling us shovels.

A big theme in the overarching story of Death Becomes Her is this unrealistic quest for beauty and youth. As two women in this industry, how have you navigated those pressures?HILTY:Pressures? What pressures? I don’t feel any of those pressures at all. I don’t know what you’re talking about.SIMARD:I’m so obsessed with you.HILTY:[Laughs] No, as a deeply vain person — and one who has been that way since she was a teenager — it’s something that I’ve struggled with for decades. I think, unfortunately, people make a lot of money off of women hating themselves. And so it’s kind of ingrained in our brains and our bodies to constantly want to do more to make ourselves desirable. Especially in this industry. It’s really, really difficult to separate yourself from that.SIMARD:I agree andI’ve spoken with [PEOPLE] before about my own feelings around body image, and sort of the dark places that disease [anorexia] took me to. It’s something many of us have to face every day. I don’t think there’s a person out there who doesn’t understand the pressure of looking their best.HILTY:I identify deeply with Madeline.She’s a woman of a certain age in an industry that is brutal to women. How dare any of us get older!SIMARD:I don’t know how many times, I’ve heard, “Boy, she’s really let herself go.” And conversely, “Ooh, she’s had too much work done.“HILTY:There’s no winning.SIMARD:None at all. We, the collective “we,” are in a lose-lose situation. But at the same time, the best comedy is rooted and pain. And I think we’re both able to really laugh at it through the course of this show.HILTY:Completely. That’s why I’m really, really thrilled to get to tell this story. While it is really funny, it’s funny because it’s based in honest truth. And it asks that question: How far are we willing to go to meet these horribly unrealistic standards of beauty and perfection?

Broadway’sDeath Becomes Her.Franz Szony

Franz Szony

Tickets toDeath Becomes Herare now on sale.

source: people.com