Debuting Friday on Netflix, GLOW is a wonderfully entertaining and involving series that tells a fictionalized account of the making of the real life GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling) show from the 1980s.
Alison Brie (Community, Mad Men) stars in the series as Ruth, a struggling actress who finds herself part of a world she knows nothing about – but that she becomes determined to fully commit to. Joining her as an unlikely GLOW wrestler is Debbie (Nurse Jackie’s Betty Gilpin), her longtime best friend and fellow actress. However, the two of them are in the midst of a rather massive rift, even as they find themselves pitted against each other in the ring, with Rush as the infamous Russian "heel" and Debbie as the All-American, lovable "face."
At the recent ATX Television Festival, I spoke to Brie, Gilpin and GLOW co-creator Liz Flahive (Homeland, Nurse Jackie) about the conception of the series, diving into the world of wrestling, training with Chavo Guerrero, and more.
IGN: Let me do the basic origin story of the show, which I know started with the documentary about GLOW a few years ago. Was it basically seeing that and thinking, “Hey, this could be a series?”
Flahive: That was really it. Carly [Mensch], my co-creator, and I had worked together on Nurse Jackie and we were sniffing around for something we could do together that was very female focused. That was really our only agenda and then we came across the documentary and couldn’t believe no one had unearthed it yet in a different kind of way. We just started talking about it and emailed Jenji [Kohan] because Carly had worked with her a few times before - literally a two line email, something along the lines of “Do you want to make a lady wrestling show set in the 80s?” and she said yes. And then we ran off for a year and worked on the script and tried to figure out our own way in and our own characters and reinvent it for ourselves.
IGN: Alison, as an actor, you want to have a diverse career and play diverse roles, but obviously you did not expect this project…
I’ve never heard anything like that before and how has nobody thought of this sooner?
Brie: No, I mean, how could you? [Laughs] It is sort of like Liz said. It’s one of those ideas that you hear it and you’re like “Oh my god, I’ve never heard anything like that before and how has nobody thought of this sooner?” But I also think it couldn’t have been done with a different group of people. It’s such a tricky thing and such a tricky tone. GLOW itself, the original show, was a really bizarre, outrageous tone. So the exciting thing about this version is that it’s so grounded and the characters are grounded and deep and interesting and the writing is so rich. That’s what I found compelling about it and obviously I connected so much to Ruth as a character. I just was excited by how dynamic the show was. It was just checking every box of “Comedy! Drama! Action! Adventure! Women!” I think everything about it was really exciting.
IGN: Betty, what was your first reaction hearing the whole premise was and what it would be?
Betty Gilpin: I was so excited. I think every actor fantasizes about a show where you get to play several characters in one piece and not just Detective Bluestone asking what time you were at the station. In GLOW, Ali and I get to play, essentially, two different characters - our real life character and our wrestling character, which is so larger than life. It feels like a dual genre thing happening. That was such an amazing thing to read.
IGN: What was the research level like? How much did you immerse yourself, because you did have the original TV show to reference?
Flahive: We kind of went balls deep in the writers’ room. It was a pretty serious situation. We went to the Reagan Library. We went hardcore, nerd 80s stuff. We would do movie nights every week and watch old 80s movies we had never seen before. There was this great 80s documentary series CNN did. We watched the old GLOW and any wrestling nugget we could get our hands on that people recommended. We got pretty serious about the research, which was really, really fun.
Brie: I feel like it ebbed and flowed. I heard the idea and then I did a quick Google search and watched some clips. Then auditioning for it, I was more focused on the material and bringing that to life in my own way. Then I watched the documentary, first thing after I learned after I got the job - which is weird to me that I didn’t watch it while auditioning, but Ruth is her own entity, you know? So I watched the documentary right away and then bought some DVDs of the show and watched clips online. And then I separated myself from it because our wrestling training was its own thing we were doing with Chavo Guerrero and our characters were all our own. So I didn’t really come back to the original GLOW until later. Episodes seven through ten, I went back to them feeling like, "Okay, I know who I am.” I would listen to Ninotchka’s Russian accent on the show. That’s something I would check in with, and then I’d watch some of the matches just for ideas. By the finale episode, Betty and I were weighing in on our fight choreography for the matches. That’s where I would go back and try to steal from GLOW and be like “What kind of moves were they doing?” Because some stuff… We’d find wrestling things we wanted to do and bring it in and tell Chavo and he’d be like “that move wasn’t really invented until 1992.” So it was fun to go back to GLOW and be like “What were they doing?” They were so scrappy. It was very unique, their style of wrestling, because they learned it for the show.
Flahive: And 80s wrestling was so different than wrestling today so I feel like we all kept checking in and being like, “What does wrestling in the 80s look like?” and luckily we had experts who were there. But it’s always good to remember that wrestling now is very, very different from wrestling then.
Brie: It was so much more comedic, especially for women. And scrappy. There was like a lot of hair pulling and the women look like they’re really getting hurt.
Everyone has a dormant wrestling character in them that is pretty easy to tap into.
Gilpin: If you watch the documentary, they were! And GLOW was so character driven and story based. When I first thought about wrestling, I thought about it as this foreign thing that I would have so much trouble accessing and then day one of researching it I was like “Oh, I know what this is! This is theater. This is playing pretend.” It was really easy to connect to. Everyone has a dormant wrestling character in them that is pretty easy to tap into.
IGN: For all of you, what was your fandom or lack thereof of wrestling beforehand versus now? I’ve been a big fan my whole life but I know it’s not for everyone!
Brie: Zero to none for me. I had never really gotten into it. But I’m sure I shared preconceived notions with a lot of the world about what wrestling was. I think I had more just not thought very much about it. So I was so excited the more I learned about it in terms of the storytelling and the characters. Also just the sheer athleticism really excited me about it. In our wrestling training, so much of it was about just overcoming fear constantly, on a second by second basis as you’re learning these moves and realizing that you can do them you just have to go for it. It was an amazing life lesson. That’s a big part of the respect when I look at what these people are capable of. It’s so impressive. It’s like acrobatics or dance.
Gilpin: It’s Olympic level. It may be choreographed or preconceived but they are true athletes and performers.
Flahive: And I think that’s the thing. Our show is such a physical show and that feels so different. It was something we wanted very badly to have happen.
Continue on as the GLOW gals discuss the face and the heel, and more about the world of wrestling and how it relates to their characters.
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