This interview contains spoilers for Season 3 of Survival of the Thickest.
It’s rare for a TV show to move into rom-com territory without sacrificing its spark, but that’s exactly what Michelle Buteau’s Survival of the Thickest—which returned to Netflix for its third and final season this week—manages to pull off, as its stylist and designer protagonist Mavis (Buteau) strives to start a family with her partner Luca, navigates serious setbacks, reaches new heights in her career, and ends up having one of the sweetest onscreen weddings in recent memory.
There’s plenty of lightness and joy on Season 3 of Survival of the Thickest, but there’s pain, too. Buteau has always had range, but in this season she shows it off, portraying Mavis’s heartbreak as well as her flair for fashion and signature zest for life with aplomb. This week, Vogue spoke to her about it all.
Vogue: What was your biggest goal for this season of Survival of the Thickest?
Michelle Buteau: I just wanted to give Mavis her flowers. Season 1 was about trying to get it right, and crossing all the “t”s and dotting the “i”s and having fun; it was really just this love letter to fatty baddies and hottie bodies and non-binary royalty, and getting into choosing yourself and loving yourself and the idea that we all matter. Then Season 2 was such a love letter to women, all types of women, and [about how] we deserve a happy ending in a soft life, a soft era—but a hard paycheck, hello—for Black women, fat women, trans women, all women.
For Season 3, I was like, “Oh, this has got to be a love letter to Mavis. If Mavis is going hard at life, she’s got to go hard in other chapters of her life, too, and just speak about what she wants without apology.” It’s like, she wants a kid! And that’s okay! If you want a kid, try to have a kid! I hope I did a good job talking about the lack of access to knowledge about our bodies during infertility treatments, and access to our feelings when we’re going through stuff, and how even if we have a community, we can still feel lonely. I wanted Mavis to see that you can’t know how good it is until you know how bad it is.
Photo: Vanessa Clifton/Netflix © 2025
Can you tell me a little bit about the process of casting Marouane Zotti as Mavis’s gorgeous and goofy love interest, Luca?
Oh my God, what I told my casting director—who’s amazing and awesome and also plus-size, Felicia Fasano—is that I don’t want the story to be exactly like it was in my book. I want to see a Black or Brown guy from another continent with a full-on accent, which, you know, takes me down the road about ICE and immigration and how borders are essentially made-up imperialism. I wanted to showcase the beauty of how universal love is, and how love can transcend any language or moment people are going through, and that you actually have to communicate better because you’re from different places, but also honor that it’s a real difference.
So the casting call was far and wide. We went to South America, all over Europe, we were just everywhere, but I landed on Marouane because I saw him in I May Destroy You with Michaela Coel, and there was such a vulnerability to him even as this terrible drug dealer. Marouane didn’t even audition; he just showed up to do the table read on Zoom, and I remember everyone in the room swooning when we were acting out the scene of Mavis giving Luca a blow job in a taxi. He was just so in the moment and vulnerable, because the guy could have really played it in a gross way, but he was so tender. I was like, I would want to be in scenes with this guy.
What’s your favorite thing Mavis wears onscreen this season?
Oh my God, so many things. The Essence cover outfit; Chuks Collins, who’s an amazing designer, made that for me, and he also made the purple dress from the Season 2 key art poster. He also made the suits that [Mavis’s toxic boss] Charles Renee puts up, and for the wedding dress, I actually saw a short wedding dress in a Vogue article and knew it wouldn’t come in my size, so I asked my costume designer Keia to make one for me.
You portray the intensity and pain of Mavis’s miscarriage so vividly. What was that like to act?
It was really hard. It got dark, you know? When I decided that this was going to be the episode for me to direct, my cast and crew gave me so much grace and were like, “Any time you want to tap out of it, you let me know.” My first assistant director was amazing and was like, “I want to schedule these scenes in the right way for you. I don’t care about people’s schedules or the time. This is about you and what you can do.” I think on the third day of working that episode, I tapped into that dark place in a beautiful way, because I was honoring it, but I couldn’t stop crying at one point. I remember somebody asking for my lunch order, and I couldn’t stop crying. [Laughs.] I couldn’t think of a better more beautiful way to honor my journey; I thought it should feel like a hug in the best way possible. I want people to feel seen—people who have gone through it, and then also people who know someone that’s gone through it—and I feel like you can lift that example from that situation and put anything in there. Just know that whether it’s a divorce or another life transition, your friend will show up when they’re ready.
I love how central Mavis’s friendships are to her, even as she finds love; how did you go about finding the rhythm of her dynamics with Khalil (Tone Bell) and Peppermint?
Well, I’ve had a best friend since seventh grade, and his name is Rasheem, and in the show his name is Khalil. It was actually really hard to narrow down the friends that I could have in this series, because it would have been a real big ensemble. Most of my friends from 20 or 30 years ago were straight when I met them, and now, thank God, a lot of them identify as a different gender and are living their truth. The beauty o growing with your chosen family, with people that hold you down and lift you up, is that you can be the best version of yourself. Khalil is a person in my life, Marley [played by Tasha Smith] is absolutely a person in my life…Peppermint is Peppermint in my life!
When we were putting the show together, people were like, “What’s going to be the central place that everyone comes to? What’s going to be the Central Perk from Friends?” I was like, it’s got to be a drag bar. I’ve grown up in drag bars, and that was really fun and opened up the whole world in a different way.
This conversation has been edited and condensed.
