One Nightstand With D’Arcy Carden

In One Nightstand, celebrity readers and writers join us at the blond in 11 Howard to discuss some of their favorite books, allowing us to learn about their tastes and lives in the process.

Sometimes you just need Judy Greer to give yourself permission to enjoy something.

“I was sort of making fun of myself for listening to books,” says actor D’Arcy Carden, who stars opposite Greer in Peacock’s blockbuster summer hit The Five-Star Weekend. “I said something about reading and then I was like, ‘Oh, I didn’t read it. I listened to it. I know — blah, blah, blah — that’s not as good.’ And she was like, ‘Stop. It’s a great way to get the information. Not everybody learns things the same way or can take things in the same way.’ She really gave me permission, and I swear to God, I haven’t stopped listening since then.”

Carden’s The Five-Star Weekend, which also stars Jennifer Garner, Regina Hall, Chloë Sevigny, and Gemma Chan, has become the record-breaking show of the summer. The series itself is an adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand’s bestselling novel, which Carden hadn’t read before being cast, which happened just days before filming began.

“I was getting scripts and I was reading the book at the same time, which was very confusing,” she says, laughing. “I would reference something, and the other actresses or the writer or whatever would be like, ‘But that’s in the book.’ I was glad I read the book but I don’t know if I would have recommended that to myself in the future to be reading it as I’m reading the scripts."

Carden’s prep paid off, though she was still nervous when the show was released. “I’d never been in anything that dropped all at once,” says the 46-year-old, whose previous work on The Good Place, Broad City, and A League of Their Own relied heavily on her comedy chops. “I remember thinking, I don’t know. If it hits on the wrong day... They move on to the next thing, who knows if it will be a blip or if it will be a hit?” In some ways, the end result didn’t even matter to her. “I fell in love with these women so hard that I hoped people would watch it, but honestly, I don’t know if I should say this or not, but I didn’t care," she says.

Carden needn’t have worried. The Five-Star Weekend has gone on to become a monster success for Peacock, clocking more than 1 billion minutes of streaming in its first week, making it the network’s top scripted series ever. The show was quickly renewed for a second season, though exactly what is to come for Brooke, Carden’s soon-to-be-separated mom of two who embraces her attraction to women during the course of the weekend, remains up in the air.

“With Brooke, she’s discovered this completely new side of herself,” she says. “She’s going to not be married anymore. I almost feel like there might be some messy teenager stuff where she’s messing up and hooking up with the wrong person. I mean — I’m, I guess, making it up. I don’t know what they're going to do, but I do feel like there’s no world in which Brooke has it all together."

Carden will no doubt bring her singular comedic timing to any such moments, something she hones through constant sketch comedy work. “I have done improv comedy for 20 years,” she says. “During COVID when we weren’t doing shows anymore. I was in a moment in my life and in my career where I almost was like, ‘Maybe that side is done. Maybe when we come out of this COVID thing, I won’t do improv anymore, and maybe that’s okay. And then maybe my time is done there or whatever.’ And then for whatever reason, doing my first improv show back after COVID, I was very clear I will do this for the rest of my life. I need it.”

Keep reading to discover four of Carden’s favorite books.

Her first selection is The Sane One, actor and PEN15 co-creator Anna Konkle’s debut memoir chronicling her challenging upbringing and fraught relationship with her charismatic father. For Carden, a longtime friend of Konkle’s, listening to the author act out each character’s voice on the audiobook was a delight.

“There are awards for audiobooks, and she should win. It’s the performance of a lifetime,” she says. “I mean, it’s always funny when a beautiful actress is also just the most fantastic old man character actor you've ever met.”

The book’s vulnerability also struck a personal chord. “I told her this at dinner the other night, ‘I know you so much better than you know me. You don’t know anything about my childhood, and now I know everything about you,’ which is just a little off balance,” she says.

Her next pick is Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin’s 2022 bestseller following two childhood friends, Sadie Green and Sam Masur, over three decades as they become legendary video game designers. Initially brushing off the video game premise, Carden eventually picked it up after it mysteriously appeared in her mail.

“A friend sent it to me, and I didn’t know who it was from. But a few weeks later, I got a text from my sweet friend, Abbi Jacobson, and she was like, ‘Did you get my book?’” she says. “So then I was like, ‘OK, I feel like enough people that I really trust and respect have recommended this book.’”

The story’s setting moves between Massachusetts, Tokyo, and New York, but much of its heart is in California, where Carden lives. “I was reading this in LA and where I live is so close to where Masur grew up,” she says. “I had the feeling that I wanted to take this book and go to his street and read it on a bench on his street. It was kind of trippy to me.”

Her third choice is a signed copy of Even the Good Girls Will Cry, the 2026 memoir from Melissa Auf der Maur, the former bassist for Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins. “As a ’90s kid, pre-internet, getting to have a behind the scenes look at some of my favorite bands and moments in that era was so satisfying and wonderful,” she says. “If this had been 600 more pages, I would’ve read every bit.”

Carden’s love of all things alternative ran deep. “I cried so hard on the day Kurt Cobain died,” she says. “I had a basketball game that night. My best friend Lindsay’s mom took me off the court and into the bathroom and cleansed my aura.”

Her final selection is Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano, a modern re-telling of Little Women following the four Padavano sisters over 48 years. “I am such a sucker for a sister movie or a sister book,” she says. “It’s one of those books where your favorite character changes each chapter,” she adds. “You just want everybody to be happy. And when there’s a love triangle, not everybody can be happy, so then you’re picking favorites and doubling back and changing.”

Watch the full episode below: