Margaret Qualley, Nick Robinson, and the Stars of ‘Maid’ Reveal Their Grossest Clean Ups

Maid is a beautifully understated look at the horror of living in poverty in America. Margaret Qualley plays Alex, a single mother forced into domestic work to take care of her toddler daughter. The whole point of the show is to illustrate how poverty itself becomes a trap, dragging folks down every time they manage to lift themselves ever so slightly from their bootstraps.

However, throughout Maid, Alex’s grim journey is punctured with humor and light. There’s dark wit, sweet moments of pure love, and some grisly supercuts of grimy house cleans. When Decider sat down with the cast of Maid, we didn’t just ask everyone about their characters’ journeys on the show, but — for fun — where in their real lives could they relate to Alex most. That is, what were the grossest, toughest, and most tedious cleans Maid stars Margaret Qualley, Andie MacDowell, Nick Robinson, and Anika Noni Rose had to tackle in their off-screen lives.

For Anika Noni Rose, who plays the glamorous Regina on Maid, dog poop was her nemesis. Rose recounted a time she had slid in some canine excrement while paintballing. Andie Macdowell went back to her teen years working at McDonald’s and Nick Robinson vented about recently cleaning a dishwasher filter. But nothing prepared us for what Maid star Margaret Qualley shared. Let’s just say we hope her ex-boyfriend’s back is…okay.

Maid is now streaming on Netflix. 

Watch Maid on Netflix