How The Bold Type's Katie Stevens, Aisha Dee, And Meghann Fahy Practice What They Preach

Katie Stevens, Aisha Dee, and Meghann Fahy have been doing press for The Bold Type all day. They’ve been up since about 6 a.M., Beginning with glam — full hair, makeup, and wardrobe — before moving through a repetitive series of press, sitting in traffic, more press, and more traffic.


Finally, they’ve made their way back to Freeform’s Burbank office, where they are scheduled to live-tweet the Season 3 premiere episode. Independently, the three ladies beeline for the rosé before cozying up side-by-side on the same couch — a visual that would look organic to anyone who has seen even one episode of The Bold Type — for their last chat of the day with MTV News.


“The experience of the show’s so exhilarating, however it might be such a whirlwind,” Fahy says, feeling the literal eleventh hour and turning to her castmates. “It’s nice to just look at your face or your face and be like, ‘Oh, we’re just doing ridiculous stuff together.’”


It’s the same sort of groundedness that the trio seeks from one another on their show, playing Scarlet magazine’s resident style closet dwellers, writer Jane (Stevens), social media director Kat (Dee), and style assistant Sutton (Fahy). The three best companions have run up against issues familiar to our generation — wealth inequality and privilege, gun control debates, women’s health and insurance gaps, #MeToo, and more — all while seeing each other through every milestone and lesson they’ve come against in their 20s, from various rounds of heartbreak to financial struggles and career questions.


At the core of it all is sincere, loving female friendship. “It’s something that was engraved on a plaque somewhere or sewn into a pillow, although your girlfriends really are the soulmates that visualize you through every experience in your life,” Dee says. “We’re taught through movies and media a lot of the time to look for your Prince Charming ... Yet really, your companions are the ones who stick with you through all of it.”


Fahy gets emotional calling out the aesthetics of having people who know you before, throughout, and immediately after any major event, prompting a crowd hug on the couch. “It’s the perfect thing ever to know you’re not actually alone because you have people who know you,” she says.


“We’re holding onto each other for dear life,” Dee laughs. “Like, as this world is spinning out, we’re like, ‘Whoa! This is crazy! Are you experiencing this too?’”


These hold-on-or-be-flung relationships are especially crucial to have in the time of social media, once each person is curating what Stevens calls a “fake highlight reel” of their lives. “I attempt to be as proper as I can, nevertheless needless to say if I’m having a really bad day, I’m not routinely gonna get on social media and talk about it,” Dee admits.


“Or on days that you feel really shitty, you post a photo of as soon as you looked better a number of days before,” Stevens suggests.


“That just depresses me, honestly,” Dee replies.


“Listen,” Fahy chimes in. “I think everyone’s guilty of it to a certain extent and there’s nothing wrong with that. It might be toxic, nevertheless I also think that it could be a really lovely medium also. It’s just knowing the distinction and knowing how to protect yourself once you’re not feeling good why as well as how to, you know, pull back and shut it off.”


“And any time to be open,” Dee offers — the very realization that her character came to at the end of the season premiere. Having avoided social media in the aftermath of her breakup with Adena, Kat was feeling pressure at work to reconnect with her digital persona. Realizing her attempts to create her life seem picture-perfect were falling flat, she determined to do something different: One night, she stripped herself of her makeup and, standing at her washroom sink, posted a video talking about her heartache.


It was a powerful scene, and one that Dee fought to prepare happen in this intimate way. “Part of what the show is is that it’s glamorous and it’s style, nevertheless I sort of wanted to be like, ‘OK, here are my freckles and my acne scars and my shiny skin,’” she explains. “What the character was saying to me was so… I felt it. I felt like it was profound to me and I didn’t desire to be saying that in a full face of makeup at a Betty Who concert.”


The truth is, confronting our vulnerabilities is a key piece of young adulthood, and life overall. Having a trustworthy dialogue within ourselves accommodates us to learn about our limits, our values, our wants, and, eventually, it may lead to some really good places.


“I take comfort in knowing that nothing is permanent,” Fahy says. “Depending on how you look at it, that can be a really scary thing, nevertheless in case you look at it in terms of like, my suffering is impermanent; my sadness is impermanent. My happiness might also be impermanent, however things are usually changing and evolving.”


Dee adds, “The Big Bang is happening now … Everything is still moving and changing all the time, and I think we look at our 20s and mention, ‘Oh, it’s this time of all this crazy stuff happening,’ nevertheless really that keeps it up and continues to happen up until you’re not here anymore.”


“There’s this unrealistic expectation that people put on people in their 20s to have it figured out,” Stevens says, reflecting that everyone’s path is different. “Even in the event you make a misstep, that leads to growth,” she adds. “You learn, ‘OK, well, what happened to lead me here? Cool, alright. Plot twist — let’s go to the next thing.’”


And for the times once it’s hard to push forward, that’s what companions are for. And the rosé doesn’t hurt (in leniency. As Stevens cooed earlier while in their order hug, “Drink your wine. Wine will make it better.”


The Bold Type airs Tuesdays at 8 p.M. ET on Freeform.