We discovered the lovely Emily Meade on “The Deuce” and were blown away by her “girl next door” beauty and her amazing acting skills. She played Sarah “Lori Madison”, a main character who appeared in all 25 episodes across the show’s three seasons, delivering one of the standout performances in David Simon and George Pelecanos’s acclaimed drama series which chronicles the rise of the pornography industry in 1970s and 1980s New York City.
Lori starts as a fresh-faced young woman who arrives in New York from Minnesota in the early 1970s. She quickly enters the world of street prostitution under the control of a pimp named C.C. (played by Gary Carr). Over the course of the series, she transitions into the emerging porn industry, rising to become a notable adult film star (often referred to as a porn celebrity). Emily completely nails this character showing a stunning range of acting chops.
In the final season (set in the mid-1980s), Lori returns to New York broke and despondent after time in Los Angeles. Her story culminates tragically in Season 3, Episode 7 (“That’s a Wrap”), where she takes her own life in a raw, haunting scene that many viewers and critics found deeply impactful. She and David Simon discuss her character here.
The role involved numerous intimate and sex scenes, which led Meade to advocate strongly for intimacy coordinators on set. She pushed HBO for better protections and later helped influence industry-wide standards through SAG-AFTRA. This advocacy stemmed directly from her experiences filming “The Deuce” and we link several interviews below where she discusses this in great detail.
She’s been in a number of movies, but has had the most success with prestige TV, including roles in “The Leftovers” and a recent two-episode role in “The Penguin.”
Emily is a very talented actress and we’re hoping to see more more of her.
Interviews and Quotes
Vogue Interview
Emily discusses her push for intimacy coordinators. “I realized I wasn’t okay . . . Playing a prostitute, then porn star, with little preparation every week, which is the nature of TV, was very anxiety-provoking for me. I wanted somebody whose job was only to protect us in the sex scenes, because there are so many factors when it comes to working with people who are your friends or your bosses; you don’t want to disappoint anybody.”
Backstage Interview
“It was a perfect storm of being on a show about sex, where the sex scenes were incredibly valued and necessary, but there was a lot of them. The process of doing that in a television show is very different than a film, because you don’t have it all laid out when you sign on, and each episode is a new script and a new sex scene; you don’t have nearly as much time to process and prepare.”
Who What Wear
Discussing 1985 costumes and fashion: “I had some great matchy white leather outfits, a lot of shoulder pads. In general, I kind of expected this year to be the most uncomfortable and ugly clothes, but it didn’t end up that way. Practically everything I wore I would wear in real life. It was a lot of fun stuff and actually a lot more comfortable because it was so much spandex and stretchy material versus the really unforgiving polyester and leather of the ’70s. I always joked that it became the same evolution as ‘Sex and the City.’ Each season, the clothes get so much better, going from the beginning and this sort of drab world to this really fabulous-looking world where the characters are making more money, and it’s the ’80s. I kind of loved everything I wore. I was very pleased every time I went to fittings. I thought it was going to be scarier.”
Resources
Emily on Instagram
She’s very active with photos and videos.