‘Sex/Life’s Sarah Shahi Reveals Her Reaction To Billie’s Finale Decision: ‘It Was Shocking’

‘Sex/Life’ took everyone by surprise in the final minutes of the finale. HL spoke EXCLUSIVELY with Sarah Shahi about her reaction to Billie’s decision, why she keeps going back to Brad, and more.

The jaw of every Sex/Life fan hit the floor after Billie went back to Brad in the final moments of the season finale. She runs to Brad’s apartment and shows up at his door. She tells Brad that she’s not leaving her family and this changes “nothing.” But she utters 3 words that put Brad firmly back in the game for Billie’s heart: “Now f**k me.” HollywoodLife asked Sex/Life star Sarah Shahi in our EXCLUSIVE interview about how she felt about Billie’s big choice.

“My response was very similar to yours except I was feeling a little something down there that I don’t know if I’m allowed to feel when just reading something,” Sarah told HollywoodLife during the show’s press junket. “I was turned on as I was reading some of these pages. It was shocking, to say the least. That’s one of these things that the show does so well. I feel like every episode ends with some kind of shocker. It’s so grounded in what it is that it’s not sensationalism at all. It’s completely real. I’m interested to see what happens. I gotta know what happens after that series finale.”

Brad reentered Billie’s life after she began fantasizing about her past. The exes eventually crossed paths again, with Brad making his voice heard about how much he wanted to be with Billie again. Billie and Brad’s relationship came to a devastating end in the past, and she went on to marry Cooper and have two kids. Sarah opened up about why Billie remains so drawn to Brad.

“I think the way in which I thought of Brad and Billie and the way that I would sort of portray her was she was like a junkie. Brad is her drug. He’s intoxicating,” Sarah said. “He represents adrenaline and the best sex she’s ever had, and she’s just hungry. Her appetite… she just wants that again. She’s been nothing a mom and a wife for so long I think she misses the danger and that rush that Brad represented. But yeah, that’s what she sort of sees. I do think these two characters love each other. I think they’re wild for one another. I think that’s apparent in the show, too, that they truly did have a connection. They were able to break each other’s barriers down like nobody else did.”

For Sarah, the role of Billie Connelly was a special one from the get-go. “When I first read the script, I was like, ‘Oh my God, I have to be this character. I don’t care what I have to do to get this job. I’ll put myself out here. I’ll bleed for this role,'” Sarah told HollywoodLife. “I just felt such a responsibility to put her story up there. There was so much about her that I could relate to. But yes, it was one of those things where you realize this kind of role with this narrative it doesn’t come around very often. She is a character whose femininity and her sexuality is so charged and at the forefront of everything, and she doesn’t make any apologies for it. That’s such a refreshing thing to see. She’s got these wants and these desires and she doesn’t want to put them on hold. She wants to have it all. That’s something that I think as women that we’re told over and over again that we can’t. I just really loved the courage that the show has to be able to put this out there in a way that no other show has and have these explicit sex scenes, have these incredibly raw breakdowns on camera, to be able to say, ‘I love my life, but it’s not enough.'”

Over the course of the first season, there are plenty of hot sex scenes. Sarah admitted that she loved that Sex/Life’s sex scenes were from a female gaze. “A lot of times, female stories and female sex scenes, they were always told through the male POVs,” Sarah said. “But now, it’s like not only do we have a female showrunner, many female writers, all-female directors, but it’s like we’re flipping it on its head. It’s like the camera is lingering on the male body, on the male body parts, just as long as it’s lingering on mine. It’s important I think to show that women can get off in a lot of different positions, not just the missionary. It was a big thing to show. The sex is not just about the sex. It really informs sort of the emotional state of the characters, sometimes even more so than the dialogue.” Sex/Life is now streaming on Netflix.