by Rob Feld
Jon Higgins found editing the way many do—by accident and intuition. A senior-year media production class in high school, taught by the band teacher of all people, first lit the fuse. It was low-tech and hands-on, cutting school news on VHS with a Grass Valley switcher. Higgins didn’t immediately realize the gravity of the moment, but the draw was real. After dabbling in news and communications studies, a flirtation with science classes convinced him he needed to switch gears for good. That meant film school—and shortly after, a move to New York.
Why New York? Because, as he puts it, “I followed a girl.” That detour turned out to be a professional gateway. He started as a post PA on a children’s show where the showrunner was writing, directing, and sometimes editing episodes himself. “I remember going to him for advice, and he just said, ‘Listen, whatever you want to do, come up through post. It’ll make you better at everything else.’” Higgins took it to heart. Editing gave him a seat at the table with directors and producers, the chance to learn from them all. And it stuck. On “Dying for Sex,” he was more than ready to bring together his comedic sensibilities and dramatic instincts to a story that was as emotionally personal as it was tonally complex.
FX’s eight-part mini-series “Dying for Sex” stars Michelle Williams as Molly Kochan, a Brooklyn-based woman diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer who, confronting her mortality, leaves her stagnant marriage to pursue a journey of sexual self-discovery—a quest that includes everything from casual hookups and kink to intimate encounters with a neighbor—supported unwaveringly by her best friend Nikki (played by Jenny Slate). Rooted in the real-life experiences and popular Wondery podcast created by Kochan and Boyer, the series balances dark comedy, raw eroticism, and emotional drama while exploring themes of trauma, female friendship, and reclaiming bodily agency. As Molly’s health declines, the show shifts into a poignant meditation on mortality, empowerment, and what it means to live fully in the face of death.
CineMonotage: Before getting to the complex type of work you’re doing now, you seem to have roamed a good deal. You could have found yourself pigeonholed, too, but you avoided it.
Jon Higgins: I did a lot of reality TV. I was working on this docuseries where I had to create a fight between two people who were never even in the same room. Technically, it was a great job. But in my soul I felt, this is not the way. I was going to quit editing and maybe move toward directing. But then someone reached out about a sketch comedy thing, so I filled in for two weeks—someone was on vacation—and it was so much fun. So, I took a big pay cut to make that transition. I started doing a lot of sketch, which led to more sketch work. I did “The Onion,” then “The Characters,” then I tried to get on “Search Party.” But it was like, “Oh no, Higgins is a sketch editor.” Then I’d try to get on something else, and they’d say, “Oh no, you do half-hour comedies.” It’s always something—you’re always trying to prove yourself. Sure, there’s a bit of a learning curve when you switch genres. But I’d say 85 percent of the skills apply. It’s just a different pacing or a different rhythm. But you’re building story either way.
CineMontage: How do you define the differences?
Higgins: Tonally, that’s the big difference. Some of it’s pacing—like in comedy, you’re trying to make the jokes punch. Right now, I’m working on a drama feature, and it’s all about hanging in shots longer, not cutting away too soon. There was some of that on “Dying for Sex,” too. The way I cut Episode 1 was very different from how I approached Episode 6. I started out thinking, “This is a comedy,” but by the end of the season, I was leaning into the drama more. Music’s another difference. In reality—especially docuseries—music can be more of a crutch. It’s used to drive energy. But in scripted work, you’re often cutting music in and out more gently, especially if it’s diegetic. Unless there’s a specific reason to punch a music cue, it’s more restrained. There’s a real difference between that docu world and scripted, and I didn’t really notice it just watching stuff. It wasn’t until I started working in it that I realized that they’re doing something very different here. So, I started exploring that.
CineMontage: Let’s talk about “Dying for Sex.” What were you told when you were hired?
Higgins: At first I didn’t think I got the job. Two of the three EPs weren’t at the interview, and it felt like maybe it was just a courtesy. But Liz Meriwether was there, and we found out we’re both from Michigan—grew up not far from each other. Who knows, maybe that’s why I’m even on the show. Honestly though, “Search Party” opens a lot of doors for me—people really love that show. When it came time to assign episodes, the only one spoken for was Episode 8. I asked for Episode 2 because I thought the script was hilarious. They said, “Great, you’re doing Episode 1.” Then I also got 6—which I love. I always want Episode 6 out of 8, or 7 out of 10. That’s the sweet spot. Script-wise, that’s Plot Point Two. It’s where the protagonist hits bottom and decides to refocus on their goal. It’s packed with story. I loved that script. Episode 1, though—that was a journey. A lot of work upfront. Originally, it opened with Molly having a panic attack, intercut with sexual imagery, then a hard cut to title, and a scene where she tells her best friend she’s dying. Visually striking, but there was no dialogue in the cold open—just this ringing sound, quick flashes, and then, boom, she says she’s dying. After that, it cut to some fun flashbacks—therapy, her friendship with Nikki—and that’s where it started to feel fun.
CineMontage: Episode 1 establishes a tone, even if it develops. What were those conversations like?
Higgins: We had a conversation about needing to establish this as a comedy right away. That way, people buckle in for the ride. Because it gets heavy later. So, it was about tone—not just for that episode but for the arc of the series. Let’s start funny. First three episodes: lean into the comedy. Four and five: shift into deeper character stuff. By six, seven, and eight, if we’ve done our jobs, the audience will be fully invested.
CineMontage: Was there a scene or moment in your episodes that really unlocked something for you; where your approach to the episode, or even the series, just clicked?
Higgins: Honestly, that whole beginning of Episode 1 was a process. We tried different things. Initially, we had this panic attack sequence—heavy imagery, no dialogue—and we ended up pulling that out, breaking it up, and interspersing those visuals elsewhere. At one point, we opened with the bodega scene—it’s a long, nine-minute bit with some inserts—but we eventually went with the therapy session between Molly and her husband. JD starts off saying, “I guess I’m a feminist,” which sets the tone. Even though it’s technically his therapy session, it immediately frames the show around Molly—her perspective, her situation. Then we meet the best friend. Then we find out about the cancer. That reordering just felt right. But we were almost at lock when the network suggested adding voiceover to establish things up top. V.O. hadn’t been part of the plan—not in the version we shot, anyway. Turns out, years before, when the show was in development, there had been a V.O.-heavy version. So now we had to engineer that back in.
CineMontage: That’s a big shift—you can’t just wedge some voiceover in organically.
Higgins: Exactly. It took a lot of discussion. Eventually, we landed on this idea that the voiceover reflects Molly’s emotional state—how much she’s holding in, how unsure she is of herself. She makes a big decision to leave her husband, but she’s not confident about it—she goes back to him, then leaves again. So, the V.O. is a tool to show what she can’t yet say out loud. And as she grows more confident, the V.O. fades. It disappears as she becomes more outward and self-assured. It took a lot to get there. Initially, there was a bit of a shock factor in the tone—is it a comedy? Is it too heavy? Are we making light of cancer? You don’t want to lose people either way. Some might turn it off because it’s too heavy or it seems too light or because of the sexual imagery. The V.O. helped us balance all that. We had this bit early on—there’s some sexual imagery, then a line about how the guy just kept going down on her, and she goes, “Maybe he was hungry?” That joke lands right up front. It tells you: this is a comedy. And that wasn’t always the case, but we got there.
‘This might be the most impactful project I’ve ever done.’
CineMontage: What about Episode 6—was there a particular challenge you had to crack?
Higgins: Episode 6 was a strong episode overall. By that point, we were mostly done with voiceover. The biggest challenge was that it was a long episode. Finding the right places to cut was tricky, and we didn’t want the tone to dip too far. There are some heavy scenes, and we actually pulled a few. The episode’s arc starts upbeat—things are going well—then Molly hallucinates “Blurry Man,” which is what we called her mother’s boyfriend, the man who sexually traumatized her. That moment is her emotional setback. Then she has a fight with her best friend, where she’s really projecting her fears about being happy. She hits rock bottom. After that, there was another scene with Jenny Slate’s character—her boyfriend is dating someone else, and she runs into the daughter. It was too much. We already had a rough scene—the one with the numb hand in the car—and the added scene felt like piling on. So, we cut it. The emotional rhythm worked better that way: the fight, the bottom, the apology, the refocus—then, unfortunately, Molly gets really sick.
CineMontage: Tell me about cutting the dance scene.
Higgins: Molly’s interpretive dance was one of the biggest sequences we worked on. Throughout the episode, we’re building to this performance where she tells her story through dance.
CineMontage: Was that choreographed or improvised?
Higgins: A little bit of both. And that was a hard one to cut. We had one take that was completely unbroken—no cuts at all. We also had versions with a lot of coverage, a lot of edits. But the more we cut, the more it felt like we were taking the moment away from the character. It just didn’t hit the same. So, we ended up going back to a mostly unbroken take, with just a few surgical edits to shape the performance and keep the focus on Molly. We did lean into some of the more aggressive moments—stomps, hand movements—but overall, it was better when we let it breathe. What stood out to me, and it took a while to notice, is how subtle Michelle’s performance can be. Sometimes she’s doing something so minor, you miss it at first. I remember starting with Take 2 or 3, and it just didn’t feel right. I kept going back to Take 1. Once I got into my second episode and made adjustments to the first, it hit me—she was ahead of us. I was just focused on the scene, but she was playing the arc of the series. The growth she was tracking was in her head the whole time. Then I got why she’s a five-time Oscar nominee. She’s doing something I don’t even recognize until I see the bigger picture.
CineMontage: What are you walking away with from this experience?
Higgins: This one was special, not just creatively, but personally. The real-life story really hit me. People have reached out because it touched them. That’s new for me. With “Search Party,” fans would say, “We love that show.” With this, they say, “That reminded me of something that happened in my life.” In other shows, I think a lot of editors would have cut away from the therapy or support group scenes. They’d see them as less central to the main characters’ stories. But we made a conscious decision to keep those moments in. It’s about more than just two characters—it’s about this whole world of cancer and what people are going through. We didn’t want to shy away from that experience. It was part of the texture we needed to maintain. I’ve never worked on something inspired by a true story before. It reminded me how deeply a film can affect people. This might be the most impactful project I’ve ever done.
