Exclusive: Necar Zadegan Talks Delia and Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce Season 2 

Forget about housewives, we’re all about Bravo’s girlfriends. Abby, Phoebe, Delia and Jo are back with a brand new season of relationship drama on Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce.

Divorce Abby-style finds the writer reconnecting with Jake and connecting with a new job. Delia’s getting married, but her fiance seems much more excited about the actual ceremony than she does. Phoebe’s overcoming the not so welcome blast from the past from last season: that horrid photographer. And Jo’s trying to jumpstart her L.A. business and put an end to her marriage.

TV Goodness recently chatted with Necar Zadegan, who plays Delia, the show’s powerful and stylish attorney. Zadegan said Season 2 is even better than the first.

TV GOODNESS: Why do you think Season 2 is better?

Necar Zadegan: Last season, it was the first season obviously. So we introduced all these characters and we kind of had to get to know them and that takes a bit of time before you get into the story. But, this year, as of the very first episode, we got to jump into the story and really explore the happenings. We didn’t have to spend so much time introducing the characters and stuff like that. For that reason, we hit the ground running. The chemistry we had built from the first season was already there, so I think for those reasons, the second season is even stronger. And, also, I really like the stories they came up with this year.

TV GOODNESS: Other than Delia’s hair being shorter this season…what are some of the issues that Delia will have to work through in Season 2?

Necar: The big one — last year, she said yes to the proposal. So this season she’s planning a wedding. It’s interesting to watch a character of this type plan something like that because she really does wrestle with them, will ask questions about it and have a lot of internal kind of strife about it. She’s the only character that ever grew up to be the woman she’s always wanted to be. And here she is now still facing questions even though she has a lot of certainty in who she is. So as a woman who’s completely self-made with no help whatsoever. We found out a little bit about her history last season in that she’s the one that takes care of her father. To come from what was her history and her life added to the kind of woman that she’s become, she wrestles with the question a lot of modern women wrestle with which is what would I get married for? Like what is it really for in my life? We don’t have to compete economically through marriage anymore. So what is the point? So I think that that’s a question she faces and deals with and I think it’s a worthy question. I think a lot of women have that question. So it’s cool to watch her deal with that and go through with that.

TV GOODNESS: Last season she questioned taking Gordon’s last name. Actually, it wasn’t a question. She said she wasn’t taking his name. Delia’s modern version of marriage versus Gordon’s traditional version of marriage — will those versions continue to clash in Season 2?

Necar: They are going to continue to explore those questions. That kind of goes with the question of what it really is. If I’m supposed to take the man’s name, what does that mean? Does that mean that marriage is about possession? Does that mean it’s about tradition? Or is it about partnership? And if it’s about partnership then why would one person have to relinquish part of their independence? Is it just because you revere tradition and you kind of like those traditions because it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Well whatever the reason is that people do things, that’s okay. But I think they’re all worthy of exploration and certainly Gordon and Delia do explore it as they go through this journey together this season.

TV GOODNESS: Will we learn more about Delia’s relationship history this season? Obviously, Delia’s been hurt but we don’t know much about that.

Necar: We’re a story about love. It’s called Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce, but we’re a story about love. And love is the greatest mystery of life, you know? It’s the one thing you never really get too old for. That’s why a woman like Adele can write a song called “Hello” at the age of 25 and women of all ages and people of all ages can relate to it in all walks of life.

TV GOODNESS: That song is so mature.

Necar: That’s the thing about love, it’s so curious. It’s always a question of why, how, how is this happening, how the hell does somebody fall in love. I think that you can’t help but think about where your history is with that. Whenever you’re talking to somebody about a relationship — the relationship they had with their parents or a relationship they had growing up, a woman’s relationship with her father, a man’s relationship with his mother — these things always come up. I think that’s why we touch on these things on the show a little bit. But the show’s not really about that. It’s about the current life of these women, so we don’t get too much into it. Just like when you’re in a relationship you don’t get into it too much, you know what I mean? You don’t immediately run to your parents house for dinner every night with your boyfriend, but it’s there. It’s there.

And I really love that the show kind of did that. It’s very real. It’s very real life. It’s there in the back of your head. And it’s there in your subconscious. And it’s now there in the viewers’ subconscious and the viewers know a little bit about it. But it’s hard to make immediate correlations. Well, I’m acting this way at dinner because my mother and father did this. It’s not formulaic. It’s not math. It’s a heart question. So I think the way that we did that in the first season is very related to the way it is in one’s life. But we don’t really get too deep into it in the second season. It is also again touched on. Within my storyline — I don’t want to give anything away — there are guest stars that come in that are reflections in the past with regards to my co-stars and Lisa’s (Edelstein aka Abby) parents, they show up in this season as well. We touch on it but don’t get into it too deeply. We focus on the stories at hand.

TV GOODNESS: What will Delia’s relationships with the other women look like in Season 2? She’s representing Jo in her divorce, right?

Necar: She does. We’re not really a courtroom drama. I sometimes joke that Delia is probably the least hard-working attorney I’ve ever seen. She’s mostly just hanging out with her friends and wearing beautiful clothes. But the relationship with the friends — it’s such a beautiful relationship that these women build. And what I love about this season is…Delia’s kind of come to this group of girls through Phoebe. Phoebe and her have a friendship history. And she represents Abby in her divorce and now she represents Jo in her divorce. But moreover, they build a friendship and we really get to explore the friendship that she builds with the girls, particularly Jo and Abby and how their friendships change in turn and require care while they’re going through their life. It’s harder when you get older. It’s like when you’re a kid and you’re playing on a playground you meet too many people, other little kids. But when you’re older and you’re working and you have a life it’s harder to meet people and so it’s so special when you do and those relationships require care because we’re so busy.

My (real life) sister actually got married this summer which was kind of cool. I was planning a wedding on the show and my sister was planning a wedding in real life. I was surrounded by wedding bliss. But what I mean to say I was in Vancouver shooting and we’re slaves to the production schedule. We really, really are. It’s hard to explain to people how demanding it is of your time. You can’t take time off. But I did. I managed to get all the way over to Greece where my sister was getting married. And so did all her girlfriends. Even though for me, particularly, it was a very short amount of time, I made the time to go and do it. Your life isn’t just about work. It’s about your life and the people that make up your life. And you have to find ways to balance that. And so the girls definitely do that this season.

TV GOODNESS: Can you tease any of the adventures you guys go on this year? In the trailer, I did see you guys dressed up in ’80s clothes.

Necar: There’s a fantastic prom episode. We have a prom. I won’t tell you why. It’s hilarious. It kind of felt like shooting a John Hughes movie. It was an ’80s themed-prom. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t necessarily supposed to be an ’80s themed prom at first. But it ended up being the most fun era. I think we were toying with ’90s, but ’80s is so much more fun. That’s a cool story, that’s a cool chain of events. There’s a lot of great storylines this year. For Delia, without giving any spoilers away, while she’s wrestling with these questions about marriage and love and her future with this man, she falls into a bit of a pattern of self-destructive behavior, which actually is hilarious. It’s not hilarious for her. Like I would often read scripts and kind of just whimper as I was finishing it. I would chuckle and whimper at the same time. Poor Delia…And that’s the thing with your friends. When you’re in your thirties and you’re dating, sometimes it’s like you’re only dating for comedic fodder to share with your friends.

TV GOODNESS: Will Delia clash with any of the friends this season? You guys definitely have each other’s backs. But you also know how to fight!

Necar: Yes and it’s that same thing that we were talking about before. Everybody is the center of their own lives. And you’re dealing with all your stuff but then, again, you have all these people around you that love you. And sometimes it’s hard to make time for one another. And sometimes it’s hard not to take stuff out on one another. But that’s the thing about your friends. You work through those moments. If something feels broken you fix it. You don’t throw it away. You value your friendship. And I think that definitely happens this season for sure. And it’s because of their own personal stories and what they’re going through. There’s definitely moments when they’re there for each other. And there’s definitely moments when they hold each other responsible. And I think that’s really relatable.

TV GOODNESS: What storyline are you excited for fans to see other than your own?

Necar: Abby’s character has kind of been the character that you can easily gravitate towards and relate to because you know her life. You’ve met her man, you’ve met her children. It’s the focal point. The rest of the stories kind of exist as these fantasy stories with the career woman and the woman sleeping with her ex and the woman who’s running away from her ex and a single mom. We shoot the show in a very naturalistic style. It’s not a farce by any means. It’s very naturalistic and so we play it naturalistic. But there’s still kind of fantasy offshoots. And we find these friends through the story of Abby so it is very, very interesting to…we’ve gotten to know her story so well with her ex-husband and stuff. It’s really interesting and beautiful to watch what happens when she goes back to her ex this season and to find out what happens. It’s really, really beautiful.

Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on Bravo.

Preview for tonight’s all-new episode, “Rule #77: Don’t Blow the Bubble”

Synopsis: Abby (Lisa Edelstein) and Jake (Paul Adelstein) try and keep their secret relationship hidden while her managing editor Barbara (Retta) at SheShe pushes her to go out on dates to drive attention to her new blog. Delia (Necar Zadegan) hires a wedding planner. Jo (Alanna Ubach) moves out of Abby’s house and prepares for the opening of her vegan bakery.