Relaxing on the sofa and listening to the fast patter of a 20-something wit is how a lot of people have spent their time since The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel hit screens in 2017. But usually it’s Midge, the show’s firecracker heroine, doing the talking, not a honey-haired Rachel Brosnahan.

It's a fall morning in New York, and the actor is sitting in a hotel room overlooking Madison Square Park, wearing a puffy-sleeved green corduroy dress by the Vampire's Wife—the modern equivalent, you could say, of her wasp-waisted fifties numbers. Brosnahan, whose recent Twitter bio had her pegged as a triple threat ("Feminist. Actor. Snacker."), is laying out her between-meal cravings.

"Tiny snacks are helpful for tiny purses," she quips, detailing a red-carpet stash of nuts and dried mango. "If I had my pick of anything—although I can't often indulge—I love Cheeto Puffs." My eyes widen. The orange doodles? Even in costume? I've never heard a better reason to keep makeup wipes at the ready. "For your hands!" she agrees. "There are so many reasons why Cheeto Puffs are not a good snacking idea."

Of course, subverting expectations is a very Maisel move. Midge raises eyebrows with dick jokes; Brosnahan ribs the wellness police with an irreverent hit of junk food. Women everywhere breathe a sigh of relief. (It's an exhale made easier by the corsets we've left behind.)

As much as Maisel is a fairy tale of a show—the near-seamless rise of a near-flawless talent, never mind motherhood, marriage, and misogyny—there's a certain catharsis in tuning in. Plot lines about salaries and casual sexism qualify as relatable content, particularly in an election cycle that has put female candidates under heavier scrutiny. Meanwhile, it's comforting, in a way, to look back on outmoded beauty standards.

In the opening minutes of the new third season, Midge slips silently out of bed and leaves her husband, Joel, asleep. The scene carries a frisson of déjà-vu, mirroring a classic moment from the pilot episode: After the love birds turn out the lights, Midge tiptoes into the bathroom for her nightly routine—curlers, lash removal, cold cream—only to repeat the charade before daybreak. This time, Midge (now separated from Joel if occasionally entwined) simply puts on her coat to leave. It's not exactly progress, but it's something.

Brosnahan has respect for it all—for the throwback theater of Midge's self-presentation, and the au courant way that she and her real-life husband, the actor Jason Ralph, occasionally mask together. (Brosnahan, a longtime fan-turned-ambassador for Cetaphil, recommends its clay-based purifying formula, which "somehow, through magic or whatever, makes my skin feel clean without feeling dry.") It calls to mind the matching face masks that Midge and her manager (Alex Borstein) wear in a Las Vegas hotel room this season. "Is this really how it works? It just sits on your face like a French whore?" Susie deadpans. Precisely. More from Brosnahan below.

Vanity Fair: Given Midge’s mid-century beauty leanings, have you acquired a newfound appreciation for a period-specific shape of lipstick or eyebrow arch?

Rachel Brosnahan: I don't know that I use this all the time in my real life, but I have learned how to put on a bold lip. Our show’s makeup artist, Patricia Regan, showed me how to do it, and now I appreciate how a bold lip can wake up your whole face in the morning. It's about creating a fullness at the top—making sure that you're following your lip line, but also you can go a little bit outside to create that really plump-looking [effect]. You don't have to shoot things into your lips to get that look. You can do it with lipstick.

Is there a scene in the show that illustrates how far we've come—or how far we have yet to go—in terms of beauty ideals and feminism?

Definitely that scene in the pilot where Midge wakes up in the middle of the night. She waits till her husband falls asleep to take off her makeup and to put in her curlers, and then wakes up before he wakes up to put her whole face back on. There was this idea—and for some people still is—that the ideal woman is perfectly put together all the time, and even the person closest to you, your partner, would never see you in anything less than that.

It reminds me of when you see people's hospital photos with their newborn baby, and you think, Did they get a blowout?

People have hair and makeup done! Listen, no judgment; to each his own. Genuinely, if that's what makes you feel good. That's also a lesson that I've taken from the show, actually. While I look at that scene and go, “Oh, gosh, what a terrible burden”—and while I'm sure that Midge became that way due to a lot of societal pressures and expectations—it makes her feel powerful. It doesn't feel like a burden to her. That's important to note, too.

What about scenes from a modern marriage. Are there parts of your own grooming routine that you keep private, or are you right there alongside your husband?

No. I believe in pooping with the door open. [laughs] I have nothing to hide. I am very grateful to be in a partnership that celebrates that. But I have been in relationships where I felt that pressure: in my late teens and early 20s, where I was having issues of my skin and I didn't want to be seen without makeup. I definitely, once or twice, woke up before the guy I was dating and put concealer on—not a full face, but yeah. I look back on that time and feel sad that I felt the need to hide a part of myself. But thankfully I don't feel that way anymore.

Invisalign is now the thing I’m thinking about. When you’re dating someone new, when do you introduce them to your dental accessories?

Yeah, I wear nighttime retainers. I learned the hard way. I had braces years ago, and my teeth moved! I had stopped wearing my retainers. Do not stop wearing your retainers. Let’s make retainers sexy again!

When celebrities pair with beauty companies, it's often in the prestige category. The idea of aligning with a drugstore brand like Cetaphil seems refreshing. What are your thoughts on the democratization of beauty—and what would Midge have made of it?

It was the most organic beauty partnership I could have imagined because I've been using Cetaphil products since I was 16 years old. Life changes a lot between 16 and 29, and Cetaphil has been one of the most consistent things during so many changes to my body and my life and my work and my skin. I also love that it is a brand that my fans and I can share. There's a real community.

Does Midge use drugstore beauty?

Well, Midge works at the [B. Altman] counter, and she's a big Revlon lady. She uses the Fire & Ice lipstick. There is a scene in the second season where Midge opens her beauty travel case, and Susie's like, “What the fuck do you need all that stuff for?” While I am a less-is-more person, Midge is definitely a more-is-more person. Midge is kind of the O.G. product junkie.

Growing up in the Midwest in the 1990s and 2000s, was beauty there low-key, or did all your friends have an extreme flat-iron habit?

I grew up playing sports, so beauty, in the way that we think of beauty, wasn't a huge focus for me. Skin care was more of a focus. I didn't learn anything about doing my makeup or hair until I was much older—until I started acting and was forced to learn on the fly. But a flatiron was a girl's best friend. The two straight, stringy pieces hanging out of my ponytail and really heavy eye makeup—I rocked that for quite a few years. Avril Lavigne was basically my beauty role model.

When I think about glamour as empowerment, I also think about your aunt, Kate Spade, with that signature updo.

Definitely my aunt Katie was sort of a personal inspiration. She gave me a lot of amazing shoes and bags early on that I built outfits around, and my sense of style was certainly inspired by my aunt Katie and my grandmother June, who inspired Katie to begin with. She taught me to love an accessory, but I think the biggest takeaway was to embrace your own style and be unapologetic about it.

The fitness scenes in Maisel are sublime. Is there any benefit to those hula-hoop routines, and do you have a preferred way of working out?

My abs hurt so badly for days after we shot that workout scene! We did so many takes. I was in a corset too, which Midge would have been, I think. So that would be a decidedly unpreferred way to work out: in shapewear. There will be another workout scene this season. It’s pretty epic. It’s even harder than the last one.

What else is on your no-thank-you list for fitness?

I have tried to love hot yoga. I am not a hot yoga person. It makes me panic a little. When it gets that hot, you are supposed to go inside! I have a very hard time sticking to any kind of routine, [between] the schedule of working on this show and other projects. The hours are crazy but never quite consistent, so it's mostly about squeezing in workouts where and when I can. I like to stretch at my house. I like to jump into a quick class somewhere if I can. That's kind of my preferred method: I need someone else to hold me accountable.

You grew up doing wrestling. Do you have hopes and dreams of having a role that would take you into certain physical situations—or do you want to be a guest star on Glow?

I would love to. [laughs] That’s a great group of ladies. One of the things I find the most exciting about acting is getting to play people that are so different from me, and trying to never do the same thing twice. I haven't yet done a project that requires me to whip myself into shape, whether that's an action movie or playing a superhero. I'd love an excuse to whip my ass into shape. That would be a real luxury.

The show heads to Miami this season. Being so fair, are you diligent with sun protection?

Very, very, very diligent, and thankfully our makeup artist on the show is equally as diligent. I burn in 30 seconds. I look at the sun from inside and I’ve burned. Sunscreen is my very best friend. I have been using the Cetaphil daily moisturizer with an SPF 15 every day, especially in the winter—which sounds strange, but it's sometimes easier to forget to use sunscreen in the winter—as a baseline. Then I'll put a stronger SPF on top of that if I'm going out in the sun; Coola also makes a makeup setting spray with SPF 30, so we could use while we were shooting in Miami. Alex Borstein and I are both very, very fair, so there's a lot of great behind-the-scenes pictures of us with umbrellas and robes, hiding desperately from the sun.

I like her spoofs on red-carpet beauty.

She cracks me up. Alex is hilarious. I think she discovered a lot of these products because people just hand them to her and she puts them on. She’s having fun.

That kind of levity seems like what we need at this time.

We can't take ourselves too seriously. Do what makes you feel good and makes you feel beautiful.