While Hulu‘s new sitcom Mid-Century Modern explores the bittersweet beauty of life, love and loss, the cast and creators experienced all three in the making of its first season.

After co-star Linda Lavin died in December at 87, Nathan Lane opened up to Deadline about the “shocking” death of the actress, who portrayed his character Bunny’s mother Sybil Schneiderman until her death seven episodes into the 10-part season, available in its entirety Friday on the streaming platform.

“It was devastating to lose her,” said Lane, while sitting down with his onscreen roommates Matt Bomer and Nathan Lee Graham. “It was one of the greatest experiences — I think I speak for all of us — of our lives to get to work with her because she was such a consummate pro and so brilliant to comedy and drama.”

Lane recalled Lavin’s longtime therapist reaching out to co-creator Max Mutchnick following her death, telling him, “‘I’m sure this is a very difficult time for you. But I thought you should know something. I thought it might help.’ She said, ‘I worked with Linda for a very long time, and this is the happiest I’ve ever seen her, and she would always say she had never felt so loved and respected on a set her entire life.’ So it’s a really beautiful thing to think that this was the last thing she did, and that she was that happy, and she felt that way and was still at the top of her game at 87.”

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Mutchnick told us: “She certainly didn’t know that it was none of us knew that it was gonna end, but she was the example of the way you want to live your life while you are here. She made the most of every day, and she made the most of every relationship that she had.”

His co-creator David Kohan also had a “fantastic” experience working with Lavin, explaining that “the feeling that you have meeting Linda Lavin is, ‘I met a new old friend today.’

“That was my experience. Immediately, it felt like we had known each other for a long time,” added Kohan. “I said to her in my first conversation with her, ‘You know, there’s a lot of my mother in this character.’ She said, ‘First of all, thank you so much for entrusting me with that. I will honor that.’ And she asked me so many questions, she read her book. I mean, she got invested. She cares.”

Lavin’s death is a particularly emotional loss given the heartfelt nature of the sitcom, which follows three longtime friends who decide to move in together after the death of their fourth comrade. Ex-Mormon/current flight attendant Jerry Frank (Bomer) and former Vogue fashion editor Arthur Broussard (Lee Graham) take up bra mogul Bunny on his offer to live with him and his hilariously honest mother Sybil in their luxurious Palm Springs home.

Years after the series was described as a “gay Golden Girls,” even before Hulu picked up the series in August, Mutchnick said it’s “fantastic because it came to fruition.”

“The ‘gay Golden Girls,’ for us, that was kind of a sales tool. It got people to understand what we wanted to do, but it’s not at all what we wrote,” he explained. “And it’s not what Mid-Century Modern is. Mid-Century Modern is more a sample of the family that you choose and what good friendship is all about and the highs and lows of life. And hopefully people will relate to that.”

Lee Graham is confident that “everyone will relate to the show in some kind of way,” adding: “You’ll see yourself. It’s especially nice for the LGBTQ+ community, but branching that out, it’s wonderful for every human out there who will see themselves represented in some kind of situation in this show, whether it’s aging, whether it’s body dysmorphia, or whatever, it was fun to play, but it was also interesting to be on that rollercoaster of emotions in each episode.”

Lane joked that the show’s representation of gay men of a certain age and their struggles was “just another Tuesday night for me.”

“It begins and ends with the writing, and these guys are some of the best who have ever done it,” he raved. “And they put together such a brilliant room. So, it was great fun to explore the different stages of these men’s lives in Palm Springs.”

Meanwhile, Bomer “was so excited to experience joy on screen, particularly with these brilliant artists. And I was pleasantly surprised that because of the sort of Norman Lear direction that the stories take at times, we got to go to some real emotional depths at times, all of us, as actors as well. So, it was nice to get to balance out both worlds.”

More than 25 years after he and Kohan debuted their trailblazing gay sitcom Will & Grace on NBC in 1998, Mutchnick notes that Mid-Century Modern also takes on some unintended relevance “because of what’s going on in the world,” explaining they’re “lucky in that we’re meeting this moment.”

“We’re just writing about characters that we know and love, and we’re lucky enough that we’re at a studio and working with a platform that is putting it on the air this Friday,” he said. “People often would say to us, ‘You blazed a trail with Will & Grace.’ And that was never the way we thought. Dave and I were writing about a relationship that we knew well, and we just lucked out that it met up with the time. And maybe that’s what’s gonna happen with Mid-Century.”

Kohan agreed, “Representation is really, really important. But you can’t put something out there that is an idea or a concept. You’re putting flesh-and-blood characters out there. And if we care about them when we’re writing them, our assumption is that people will care about them when they’re watching.”

Although Mid-Century Modern‘s elements of LGBTQ representation and chosen family make it ripe for a potential Will & Grace, Mutchnick broke the news that “I don’t think we’re gonna do that.” But that doesn’t mean fans won’t see some familiar faces in future seasons.

“We really want these worlds to operate separate from each other,” said Mutchnick. “We obviously love Will & Grace and everything that that show did and was is unbelievable. That’s not to say that those actors won’t show up, if there’s something perfect for them, and they want it, and we want it. But I think the worlds aren’t going to cross over.”

Kohan teased that one faceless character finally might be revealed. “Maybe Karen’s [Megan Mullally] invisible husband Stan will show,” he joked.