‘Ginny & Georgia' Scene Hit Brianne Howey Hard as a New Mom: 'Totally Broke My Heart'
Netflix's hit drama Ginny & Georgia had a brutal third season, from Georgia's legal battle to Gil turning his violence toward Ginny, but the single most emotional scene in the whole season, if not the whole show, came when both Ginny and Austin were taken from Georgia's custody-and Georgia actress Brianne Howey's real-life motherhood made the scene hit so much harder.
"It was heavy; it was," Howey said of the season. "We know the broad strokes of what's going to happen prior to shooting each season. We know what we're walking into, but we don't know the fine details and exactly how each character gets where and why until we read the scripts, which is a little bit before shooting. So, we are on the journey along with the audience."
About the scene in which Georgia loses custody of her children, she said, "My daughter turned one when we were shooting that season, and it totally broke my heart. But also, the writing is so beautiful, and it's so heartbreaking. They do such a beautiful job, and it's so earned. It doesn't feel gratuitous for no reason. And that's what I'm so grateful to our creative team for."
Howey also reflected on what it meant to be postpartum while filming that scene.
"It added some extra layers where it just really...I mean, being a mom is hard to put into words, and we still have a long way to go. My daughter is almost three, so it still in some ways feels like the beginning, of course, and I still have so much to learn. But it definitely added a lot of layers to it," she explained.
Howey spoke about how motherhood has deepened her feelings towards her costars, Antonia Gentry and Diesel La Torraca, who play her on-screen children Ginny and Austin, as well.
"I already loved Toni and Diesel so much, but then, yeah, now having my own child, I just look at them and I'm like, 'I can only imagine how proud your parents are of you guys," Howey said.
Howey also has some key ways she unwinds and separates work from home, especially for the more emotionally heavy scenes.
"It's hard to leave work at work sometimes, I think no matter what your career is," Howey said. "It's definitely a work in progress, something I'm still working on. But trying to use some of those more emotional scenes or episodes in a cathartic way, it's almost like therapy. So, just trying to think of it as I can kind of get it all out on set so that when I go home, I don't have to carry any of this with me."
"Definitely leaning into friend time and family time, and I watch plenty of reality TV to help distract me sometimes, and that's always fun," she added.
In addition to her current work on Ginny & Georgia Season 4, Howey is part of Colgate Optic White's "The Science of WOW" campaign, which highlights the science behind Colgate's Optic White Pro Series toothpaste.
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This story was originally published May 8, 2026 at 12:56 PM.