Ginny & Georgia‘s Brianne Howey on Season 3’s ‘Wild Ending’ & What It Means for Georgia’s Future

Spoilers ahead for Ginny & Georgia. When Ginny & Georgia’s Brianne Howey entered the courtroom set for Season 3, she was tasked with playing a new version of her usually confident and cunning character– one that was now afraid, powerless, and exceedingly unsure of herself.

“Georgia’s never been clueless,” she tells me over Zoom. “We’ve never done that before.”

Brianne plays Georgia Miller, who until this season, never had to face the consequences of her actions. Her character, a 31-year-old single mom of teenager Ginny Miller (played by Antonia Gentry) and wife of the mayor, was now facing trial for murder.

“We were calling this the Georgia Miller breakdown season,” she recalled, adding that the creators and showrunners constantly repeated the phrase behind the scenes. “You know, we built Georgia up to break her down, but I think a reset could be coming, maybe. Hopefully, after this.”

From the glimpses of her past, you can tell that Georgia Miller is one of the most complex characters you’ll ever meet: she ran away from home at 14, had her first child, Ginny, at 15, and was married twice before she moved to Wellsbury, Massachusetts. She’s both the hero and the antihero; she’s clever, manipulative, and beautiful, and will do just about anything for her children, even when it means doing something morally ambiguous or bad.

And yet, somehow, Georgia Miller’s murder trial wasn’t her rock bottom, but more of the tipping point. It wasn’t until she lost custody of her kids, was called a serial killer on live TV, and her defense lawyer walked out on her that it all came crashing down.

“For the first time in Georgia’s life, everything is out in the open,”  she reflected. “Being called a serial killer by the PI in front of all of Wellsbury, and it being broadcast, was one of the lowest points of Georgia’s life. I mean, this was the exact opposite of everything she could have hoped for. So it was challenging, like, I even got to discover some new sides of Georgia.”

Ahead, Brianne talked to StyleCaster about Georgia Miller’s most compelling moments in Season 3, and what we can expect for her character in the next season.

Georgia has always led with survival. She is constantly doing things to protect herself and her kids, even when that means crossing legal or moral boundaries. How much do you think this has to do with her unresolved trauma?

I mean, you’re probably spot on. There’s no one Georgia is running away from more than herself. Of course, under the guise of: she’s running away from all of her exes, from all of her family,  and from very heavy past trauma. But I think that led to a life of Georgia not knowing herself at all, running away from herself, feeling a lot of shame, and not having the tools to deal with it. 

On a similar note, we’ve seen how Georgia’s past drives many of her decisions, and she also frequently buries her trauma. She doesn’t tell her kids much about her relationship with her parents. How do you think that affects how she mothers Ginny and Austin?

I mean, Georgia has been winging it. The one North Star for Georgia is her love for her kids, so she leads with that first and foremost. Of course, that looks a little bit different in Georgia, like the way Georgia feels that she’s showing Ginny love. Ginny doesn’t feel like she wants to receive love that way, right? Ginny would like a mom who is a little bit more self-aware and who could act like the adult in the situation. So I think, unfortunately, Georgia suffers in that arena.

Yeah, that makes sense. This season, we’ve seen more of Georgia’s past and flashbacks of her childhood. And it’s clear that she repeats generational patterns in a way, but she also is trying to break them.

This is the first season where we start to see a little bit of it right there. There are a couple of scenes where we can see Georgia actively making different choices. She calls Dr. Lily, and she lets Ginny have some agency when Ginny finds out that she’s pregnant. It was surprising for Georgia.

When Georgia is on the other side of the door, when she assumes Ginny is self-harming, something that took me by surprise: I assumed Georgia would make that moment about her take up all the space in the room, and she didn’t.  For the first time, she tried to temper her own emotions, so Ginny couldn’t see how upset she was. But, it’s pretty rare. So much of it is exactly that generational pattern–it’s her past, and that she’s scared. She ran away from home at 15. She barely knows her family, and what she does know of them isn’t great. And one thing that’s kind of exciting that we’ll start to play with in Season 4 is that Georgia learns more about her family.

Do you think Georgia believes she’s a good mom, or is she simply trying to be better than the mom that she had?

I think up until this season, Georgia thought she was a pretty damn good mom. Georgia felt very confident in her convictions, lifestyle, and her choices. Then, cut to Season 3. I think it isn’t until the kids get taken away and she sees how they’re doing pretty well with their dads, that Georgia finally starts to think that her kids might be better off without her, which then leads to all these horrible decisions Georgia starts to make after that. Her thoughts are heading toward “’I’m just going to get out of here.”

This season, Georgia is on trial for murder, but she also has this compelling story and personality that makes people want to root for her. How do you personally reconcile her moral ambiguity as an actor playing her?

It was definitely harder than the last two seasons. For Season 2, I had to wrap my head around her killing Tom Fuller. Then we got to Season 3, and there’s a whole bunch of decisions during the committee that are kind of hard to get behind with the pregnancy test and all of these things. 

We talk about it a lot with our creator. I’m very grateful to our writers. I think our writing is so beautiful, and even though these very extreme decisions are being made and these extreme actions are happening, I think they’re very earned and justified. Especially from a writing point of view. As an actor, I just try really hard to bring as much humanity as I can to Georgia in every moment, in every scene, because at the end of the day, we’re all going to make decisions that not everybody can get behind. And we all have different tools in our toolbox, and I definitely don’t judge Georgia in any capacity. 

I try to let the audience decide what they think and feel about her choices. But we definitely have a lot of conversations about how Georgia isn’t black and white. There’s a lot of gray area, and she’s a little bit of the anti-hero. And sure, we aren’t always in agreement with her actions, but I think we can get behind her intentions, which I can always do.

I loved this season because I feel like we saw Georgia have so many different personas. She’s a victim, a fighter, a mom, she’s kind of manipulative, but she’s also kind of helpless sometimes. How do you hold space for all of those different traits in her when you step into her shoes?

I mean, look, it’s really fun. It makes me feel so lucky that I get to play Georgia, because she’s the most dynamic character, not only that I’ve ever played, but I’ve ever seen. I think Georgia is a powerhouse. She’s dynamite. But there’s a lot of shades and colors and nuance, and it makes every scene and every day on set keeping me on my toes. There’s literally never a dull moment. There’s no tricks in your back pocket, because everything is very active and new with her. 

I feel really inspired by Georgia acting so differently depending on who she’s in a scene with, whether she’s in a scene with her kids or with one of the men in her life, she wears a very different mask. Whereas, what mask is Georgia wearing with this character today, and what dials are returning up or down. With the kids, I think she’s always her most authentic.  But for someone like Paul, it’s more that she’s viewed as a career woman, and he sees her as this professional woman that she’s always secretly wanted to be but never had the opportunity to be.

With Ginny and Zion, they were always ships passing in the night, and there’s always so much love there that I thought was so fun to play. But then, after this season, I think there’s probably no going back for them. The lines have been drawn now, and I don’t think their relationship will ever be the same. And then there’s Joe. If Georgia didn’t go through all this trauma, he would have brought out the best in her in that way. He brings out that regular girl, who we maybe could have gotten to know better, if she didn’t have all this trauma. So yeah, Georgia, she’s a very full bag.

Moving on to the courtroom scenes, how did you prepare for those emotionally and mentally, and were there any particular moments that stood out to you or challenged you?

The courtroom scenes were really hard, especially because for me, there were a lot of colors for Georgia in the courtroom that she’s never played before—that I’ve never played for her before. Georgia’s never been clueless. Georgia did not know what was going on. We’ve never done that before, and especially for the big reveal at the end, when she finds out Austin is the one who saved the day. It’s so many conflicting emotions, right? It’s devastating, because what has my son done? It’s shame, because she asks, “What has my son done? What have I done?”

He obviously thinks this is okay because of what I’ve taught him. But it’s also thrilling, because Georgia is off the hook, and we get to go back to our life now, where the kids get to come home. So it’s very complicated. The crux of Georgia’s life, up until this season, is secrecy and privacy, and for the first time in Georgia’s life, everything is out in the open.

Was there a scene this season that made you see Georgia differently or feel more protective of her as a character?

 Definitely all the scenes where we see that little bit of growth from Georgia, that in Seasons one and two we didn’t see coming. Like, Georgia actually calling Dr Lily blew my mind, and Georgia not telling Ginny what to do when it came to the pregnancy test, and Georgia calling Marcus to go meet her, I think, was very on brand for Georgia. Those things make me feel protective over her and know that her intentions are always in the right spot. Granted, maybe very misguided, but it is. It couldn’t be clearer to me how much she loves her children from scenes like that.

And like we said, Georgia’s entire sense of power and control is unraveled in Season 3. Do you think everything that happened was her rock bottom or a reset?

I think it’s rock bottom. As shocking and extreme as this season was, all paths led here. I think it’s the only thing that makes sense. We needed Georgia to eventually take some accountability. I wish it didn’t have to get so extreme, but I feel like Georgia’s kids getting taken away from her is really the first time in her life she had to sit and deal with it. She had to sit with her thoughts and actually face some of her demons, or start to.

Georgia’s sense of identity and self-worth is tied to being needed as a mother, so how did you navigate Georgia and her emotions when she lost custody of her kids?

That was one of the hardest scenes ever. Everyone on set was so gracious and created such a safe space. Toni, Diesel, and I dive into the deep end and give it our all and really go for it. I mean, that scene was my personal nightmare. It’s so hard to do and but I’m so proud of everyone involved. And, you know, take one big deep breath and trust yourself and trust the process. 

I think for touch scenes like that, that’s where the fact that it’s our Season 3, and we’ve gotten to do this for so many years together, comes in. You feel the fruits of your labor in that sense, because I know that we’re not doing it alone, and that we’re all in this together.  It was a lot of talking about it beforehand, and scenes like that. It’s rehearsing them a touch less, because they are so hard to do, and you don’t want to waste the emotion on a rehearsal or too early before the camera’s ready. 

I feel like this season has been all over the place with her love life. Like, we have Joe in the mix. We have Paul. We have her relationship with Zion. We have Gil, and at the same time, Georgia is always pushing people away, or like, hiding parts of herself. Do you think she’s starting to understand what real love looks like, or is she still learning how to let herself be loved?

I think she’s still learning. When Georgia says to Paul, “You’re the reason my kids got taken away.” Obviously, Paul is not the reason her kids got taken away. And Georgia says it in this fit of rage, but that showed me that Georgia does wholeheartedly believe that. I think Georgia thinks that if Paul was home, this wouldn’t have happened, and they wouldn’t have taken the kids away. Even though I’m sure the kids still would have gotten taken away.

I mean, it’s a cliche, but you gotta love yourself before anyone else can, like, really love you. I don’t know. I definitely don’t think Georgia loves herself quite yet. And I think we can start to see some of the pieces with her relationship with Joe. The more she shares with him, he is still her friend. I think Georgia is learning a little bit about what love and friendship are from Joe, but I think also, Zion being the one to call Child Protective Services is a really big setback for Georgia on her journey of what love is. Because I think she would have thought Zion was always going to be in her corner no matter what. So, you know, a couple of steps forward, but I think a few more steps back for now.

What do you think Georgia would say to her younger self if she had the opportunity?

Oh gosh, the Georgia who’s been through all this stuff, or who hasn’t been through this stuff?

Who’s been through all this stuff.

It’s a great question. What would Georgia say to her younger self after all of this? My God… buckle up. Good luck, babe. You’ve got to work on yourself. We’ve got to figure out that they didn’t need to be this hard. But, I mean, what was so cool about this season too, is I feel like we learned so much more about Georgia and Lynette’s relationship, especially through flashbacks, but also through their present day scenes, and that if Georgia had asked for help or relied on Zions family, a little more how different everything could have panned out, but she didn’t. 

I think we all live and we learn, and I think Georgia is beginning to see that if she didn’t have to do all of this alone, she could have asked for help back then, and she didn’t. That’s why it’s so important to ask for help now. Maybe she would tell her to ask for help.

The show often balances dark, heavy moments with humor and lightness. Were there any scenes this season that surprised you in how effortlessly, or how natural that felt, despite that being a big contrast?

I will say now that we’ve been on the show for so many years. My favorite scenes are where it’s like a Ginny and a Georgia. It starts off funny, and it’s serious in the middle, and then funny again at the end. And I think the writers have nailed that equation for us. I feel so close to Antonia at this point. All the scenes feel that way, like it’s so easy to step into these characters and these scenes now, but I think probably when we were on the couch at the end of the season post-abortion and the girls are just shooting the shit.

The final scenes of Season 3 were very shocking and interesting, with the allusion to possibly a new chapter of motherhood for Georgia. How do you interpret what that means for her?

Oh, the irony. It’s a very wild ending. It poses a few questions, right? Is that what’s happening and with whom, because Georgia was intimate with more than one person this season. It’s not an issue, but it’s not something Georgia was planning on doing.

I can only imagine the conversations of having to tell Ginny that, after what Ginny has just gone through, and I can only imagine the conversations about having to tell that about the people she’s been intimate with this season. Yes, so maybe it’s coming at a time where Georgia is finally starting to self-reflect and ask for help, that maybe she could break some cycles. Round three, she’s a different person.

Without giving too much away, should we, the audience, be bracing for more heartbreak, redemption, or chaos in the next season, or all three?

I was gonna say, if you’ve watched these three seasons, you know all three of those things are coming. It’s always like Ginny and Georgia are all contrast, and that’s what they’re so amazing at writing. So yes, it’s gonna be all three from my experience on the show. The stakes just keep getting higher and higher with each season. So I am positive that for Season 4, the stakes will be higher than ever.

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.