Inside That Epic ‘Living with Yourself’ Dance Scene

If you’ve made it through the perfect binge-watch that is Living with Yourself on Netflix, you already know that the show has made you laugh and think about your own life. It’s also made you want to learn a dance routine to “Give It To Me Baby”. When Decider sat down with the cast, creator, and directors of the Netflix series earlier this week, we had to get the scoop on that irresistible dance scene — and that less than perfect one, as well.

In Episode 7, “Pina Colada” we watch as Kate and New Miles attempt the dance but don’t quite get it right, and it’s in Episode 8, “Nice Knowing You” when Old Miles and Kate, the original performers, totally nail the most charming moment of the series. So how did this all come together?

For starters, co-director Jonathan Dayton shared that they worked with choreographer Jenny Shore Butler, who specializes in “more pedestrian moves” rather than smooth, jazzy, professional dance moves for Paul Rudd’s Miles and Aisling Bea’s Kate. “We love dance and Paul is such a good dancer, he’s such a great physical performer. So it was this wonderful way to show this connection at a really important time and not use words. It was also a way to show that New Miles couldn’t do this but Old Miles had the muscle memory and the connection [with Kate].” 

“It was the one window on the relationship where you get it,” co-director Valerie Faris added.  

The actors spent a chunk of their limited rehearsal time learning the moves — and about each other. “It was great because by rehearsing it before shooting, Paul and Aisling could get to know each other and develop that rapport and start to build the history that they needed as performers,” Dayton said. 

And they didn’t just need to nail the dance when they do it right — they had to be good at doing it wrong too. “We’d worked so hard on the dance it was almost really hurtful doing the one in the bar where we don’t get each other,” Bea said. “It was harder to fake because we’d worked really hard, but the essence of that felt like a hurtful thing to do. So it’s a lovely storytelling device to show it rather than say it.” But Faris actually enjoyed the less perfect version of the dance. “One of my favorite things about the dance is seeing New Miles try really hard to get her into it. There’s this one move that you do,” she said to Rudd, “where you’re backing up. I love that moment so much because it’s just fun to see when you’re not in sync.” 

The group also had to get in sync over the perfect song choice with Rudd noting that there were “debates over the song, trying to figure out what would be the right one.” Dayton sighed, “We looked at a lot of songs.” 

“Rick James!” Faris exclaimed. “I don’t know why we didn’t think of it immediately.” 

Bea appreciated the significance of both the show’s sex scenes and dance scenes for letting the couple’s movement together demonstrate their connection (or lack thereof). “You know when you just can’t describe why two people work and when they don’t, or when you think, I’m gonna have great sex with that person, as I do every single day, it’s a perfect way of showing when something gels for no good reason other than chemistry. The two sex scenes and the two dance scenes show something there works without life getting in the way. There was this physicality that worked with each other. It’s a hopeful act at the end isn’t it, him coming back and going, let’s dance.” 

And that was purposeful on the part of Greenberg, who wanted to show the particular growth the Miles character had experienced throughout the course of the show. “I do not think when we pick him up at the beginning of the show, if she said, ‘Hey, do you want to go dancing?’ he would not say yes. In a way, that question, ‘Do you want to dance or not?’ is the simplest distillation of what kind of place you’re in. Are you [feeling] good, happy, confident, I don’t mind if I’m going to look silly? That’s a joyful thing to dance, and when you’re not feeling that way, you don’t want to dance.” Now that Miles and Kate do want to dance, we’ll take a full Season 2 of them doing just that, please.

Where to stream Living with Yourself