'Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' Star Rachel Brosnahan Reveals What She Shares with Midge

Rachel Brosnahan doesn't feel like Mrs. Maisel until she has her costume on.

"I don't feel complete until I have a wig on, my hair did, lipstick and the corset," Brosnahan told Variety Thursday. "Midge is very fashion-conscious and the shape of 1950s fashion was with a long torso and lower waist, this way the costumes really do look like they came out of a fashion magazine because that would have been important to Midge."

The actor took up the role of the whimsical Midge Maisel in Amazon's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in 2017 and won an Emmy for the role before the second season aired. Brosnahan compared herself to her character in small details, but spoke of her lack of work confidence. While Midge's audience is growing, so is Brosnahan's, something she is only now considering.

"I knew that Midge would become a successful stand-up, but I didn't really think about what that would look like in practice, the audiences are growing now, which means that they're growing for Midge, but they're also growing for me," Brosnahan said. "I'm performing in front of more and more people every time I get up onstage and it's horrifying. It never gets less horrifying. Although from some stand-ups I've spoken to, it doesn't seem that out of the ordinary. So I'm in good company with the constant state of petrification."

Though the actor isn't so comfortable with the spotlight, she sees similarities between herself and her character. She's not yet ready to acknowledge a confidence in her work, though.

"I think we are both ambitious—we're both resilient and I think we both see the glass half full, but I'm not as confident as Midge, particularly when it comes to work," Brosnahan said. "Midge enters into this whole new field that she has no experience in at all and genuinely believes in her heart of hearts that she can take it by storm. She never doubts it for a single second. That's not me."

The actor auditioned for the role of Midge when suffering from the flu. She relayed the audition with the note of sickness and claimed she maybe shouldn't have flown with the illness. The show's creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino who also created Gilmore Girls, remembers her audition differently.

"She blew in like a hurricane," Sherman-Palladino told the New York Times in November 2017. "Nothing shook. Her pages didn't shake, her hands didn't shake. There was literally no fear."

The creator finds Brosnahan's work dedication impressive. "The secret of Rachel's success is good old-fashioned talent and extreme hard work," she told Variety. "No one works harder on her craft, on her character. She's a total and utter perfectionist, but in the nicest possible way."

According to Sherman-Palladino, the show will return to Amazon before the end of 2018.