The Bold Type’s stars talk final season farewells, special moments, and filming during the pandemic

The final season of the beloved millennial-favourite series The Bold Type is now available to stream first and only on Showmax. Big on girl-power, and even bigger on friendship, the five-season comedy-drama stars Katie Stevens, Aisha Dee, and Meghann Fahy as ambitious 20-somethings and inseparable besties Jane, Kat and Sutton, navigating life, love and their careers in New York City.

Created by writer-producer Sarah Watson (Parenthood), The Bold Type was inspired by the life of former Cosmopolitan editor Joanna Coles, and centres on fictional global magazine Scarlet. The show has a 91% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an 8.4/10 score on IMDb for the series finale, and AV Club calling it, “A heart-on-its-sleeve, good-for-you affair that’s also a glossy, giddy comic workplace drama.”

The Bold Type has been nominated for GLAAD, Imagen and Satellite awards, as well as seven Teen Choice Awards, including three for Best Summer TV Show, two Best TV Actor noms for Aisha, and one each for Katie and Meghann.

The show’s message of empowerment and solidarity has been an inspiration to fans, and the 2020 Women’s Image Network Awards acknowledged its impact, awarding Katie Best Actress in a Comedy Series, with a nomination for Aisha as well as for Outstanding Show Directed by a Woman for series co-star and Emmy nominee Melora Hardin (Transparent, The Office, Monk), who made her television directorial debut with episode 12 of Season 4.

After being pushed both personally and professionally like never before last season, Jane, Kat and Sutton are poised to uncover their true selves and make their voices heard this season, all while continuing to support each other through thick and thin. Plus, Nikohl Boosheri returns as fan-favourite character Adena… 

The new season promises tantalising hook-ups, long-awaited make-ups, heart-breaking split-ups, some much-needed character clean-ups and both career and relationship level-ups as we say goodbye to the girls who’ve become our TV besties over the past five years.   

COVID kiss guards, protocols and more

Unlike the majority of productions, which shut down over the pandemic, The Bold Type took the bold decision to go ahead with shooting its final season. Plus, in the world of the series, the pandemic didn’t happen. Which is perfect for those of us needing to escape into an alternate reality for a while. 

But creating that reality wasn’t easy. With just six episodes to give their characters a satisfying send-off (after losing two eps at the end of last season when COVID halted production), the pressure was on, and COVID protocols made everything harder, especially since everything had to look normal. 

“I feel like we’ve exhausted ourselves talking about it,” Meghann said during Freeform’s farewell panel at the online ATX TV festival. “We complained so often to each other about it, even though we were so grateful to be there, and it was so much better that we got to make the show than to not. And we were really grateful to have a job during this time. But it was really, really tough, to be honest. There was very rarely hugging or hand holding, our interactions were timed and literally measured with sticks.” 

For kissing scenes, she explains, “We had to wear these kiss guards that were basically like a prosthetic mask that they glued to your face, that has a free-hanging plastic [breathing] tube… So bizarre.”

“You’re wearing it while the camera is on the other person and the other person is wearing it while the camera’s on you,” Katie says. “The [kissing] scene that I had to do, the other character was like, ‘You look so beautiful.’ And I have this thing on my face. Poor guy had to try to act like I really looked beautiful in that moment, with this thing on my face.”

But the prevailing sentiment was that it was all just what they had to do to get the show done. “There were so many weird, odd things,” Stephen Conrad Moore, who plays Oliver, said at the ATX TV discussion. “Like, just even being able to interact. It’s our last season; you want to be able to have some small talk… but it was just so hard. I wanted to have more connection with so many people, but it was like, ‘Uh uh – six feet [apart],’ constantly.” 

The season was shot in Montreal, so they were all far from home too. “No one [could] come visit us, so we were away from all of our friends and family for 15 weeks. I didn’t get to see my husband, our friends, our families,” Katie said. 

On top of that, the actors had to be super careful about their interactions off-set as well. “We have to be the most careful in terms of not going anywhere, not doing anything, because we literally cannot get sick. If one of us gets sick it will shut down the whole production. So there’s a lot of pressure… but I feel like we all handled it like pros, we all supported each other and uplifted each other, and let each other vent… That was really important for our mental health,” Katie laughs. “And when you watch it, you can’t even tell that we shot it during COVID times. It does really feel like the show has always felt, even with all of the restrictions that we faced.”

Time to say goodbye

On Good Morning America, Katie revealed that they found solace by playing music together. “Aisha had her ukulele, I had my piano, Meghann had her guitar, and we would just sing together and hang out. It was really lovely.”

But saying goodbye was always going to be hard. “You know, I wasn’t really expecting to get emotional, which is very naive of me,” Aisha confessed on Good Morning America. When the time came to wrap it up, she says, “We all cried like eight-year-olds. It was pretty embarrassing actually. I hope nobody has the footage.”

“I think some of the emotion took us a bit by surprise,” Meghann told MTV News. “It’s funny, when you enter a final season of a thing and you know that it’s the final season of the thing, you feel like you’re preparing yourself the whole time. And you’re not,” she laughs. “Because when you’re actually in the moment where you’re realising it’s the last time you’re gonna be on a set that you’ve been on for the past four years or the last time you’re going to have a scene with a character that you’ve been working with for so long, it’s just… you can’t really prepare yourself for that. It’s super emotional.”

“But,” Aisha adds, “it’s cool that we got to know that we were coming to the end, so that we could be intentional about it and deliberate about the choices we were making and really taking it all in… There are very few things in your life that you get to know that this is going to be the last time. So often it’s the last time and you’re just… you’re not prepared.”

“The very last scene that we have in the show is just [Jane, Kat and Sutton] in the fashion closet, talking about where we’re going to end up and where we’re going to go, and that will stick out in my brain as one of my favourite scenes that I’ve ever shot,” Katie told MTV News. “It felt like a chapter closing in that moment, and we all in our own takes were so emotional that I don’t think we all did more than one take of our own shots, because we couldn’t get through it. It was just so real and raw.”

As for what the future holds beyond that final scene, Katie told MTV News, “I hope, wherever they end up, they are still together and still supporting each other and encouraging each other and following their dreams and asserting themselves.” One gets the feeling she might be speaking for the actresses themselves too. After all, the show has gifted its three young stars career-making roles, and what we all hope will be a life-long friendship.

The overwhelming feeling among the cast is a deep appreciation for the time they spent together on the series, and all the magical moments they got to share with us. 

“This show has left a permanent, beautiful mark on my heart,” Katie tweeted, saying, “It was the best job of my life. I’m leaving here with that gift and never letting go.” 

"This show has left a permanent, beautiful mark on my heart. It was the best job of my life. I'm leaving here with that gift and never letting go." – @thekatiestevens. Swipe to Read more from Katie's favorite #TheBoldType memory. pic.twitter.com/nMepxfyfrJ

— The Bold Type (@TheBoldTypeTV) July 11, 2021

“I’m just filled with so much gratitude that we got to do five seasons of a show that feels really important, and put lots of good energy into the world,” Aisha said on the ATX TV panel. “As much as I know it’s just fiction, I think it affects people in the real world in a beautiful way.”

“What’s beautiful about the show is how much it has given young people, and people of all ages, and walks of life and genders and sexual orientations,” she told MTV News. “I feel like it’s been really empowering for people to live their truest lives and have the confidence to ask for the raise or to tell someone that they love them. So the show ending, I hope that people take it as motivation to go out and live. Take the lessons from the show and go and live your most beautiful, brave, wholesome life.”