- 2 days ago
In this edition of THR Frontrunners, 'Girls5Eva' creator and showrunner Meredith Scardino and stars Renée Elise Goldsberry, Sara Bareilles, Busy Phillips and Paula Pell sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to talk about the third season of the Netflix comedy series.
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00:00Probably the greatest joy I think we have on this show is watching other people,
00:05watching their bits are almost more joyous for us than our own.
00:09Almost!
00:10More joyous for us.
00:17Hi, everybody.
00:19I want to introduce the cast of Girls Live, Eva.
00:22First up, we have Paula Pell.
00:25Busy Phillips.
00:26Right behind her.
00:28Sarah Bareilles.
00:31Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:32And Renee Lee Schultz-Berry.
00:35And please welcome back Meredith Scardino.
00:40This is so cute.
00:42This is so, oh my God.
00:43I love this.
00:44Hi, everybody.
00:45Thank you for coming.
00:46Thank you for being here.
00:48Thank you for being here.
00:49We're so thrilled.
00:51I love your shirt so much.
00:53Wait, what shirt?
00:54BPE.
00:54You got a BPE shirt.
00:55Right here, right in the front, BPE.
00:58I'm feeling a little left out.
00:59But it's okay.
01:01I don't have BPE, but that's fine.
01:03Yes, you do.
01:04You could.
01:05BPE is a state of mind.
01:08Yeah, and anyone can have BPE.
01:10Whether or not they have a P or a B or a BP.
01:14I mean, technically, you have a P.
01:15Technically, yeah.
01:16It's just a different kind of P.
01:18Yeah.
01:19I'm such a huge fan of this show ever since season one.
01:23I've seen each season multiple times at this point, not to brag.
01:27But for a lot of us who were fans of the show, season two ended, and we were very concerned
01:33that we weren't going to get more.
01:34I imagine you two were also, yes.
01:37As were we.
01:38So I was very excited when I heard Netflix picked it up.
01:40Can you talk about what it was like when you heard that news?
01:44It was heavenly.
01:45It was, and we really didn't have a long period of just complete despair.
01:51There was some despair, for sure, and uncertainty, but it had that deep underpinning, you can
01:58speak more, of hope of Netflix is probably going to take this, and we're going to have
02:04a second chapter here, which everything in this, it's like art imitating life of second
02:10chances.
02:11Our characters have second chances, and now we're getting a second chance to do it.
02:15So it's amazing.
02:16We're so grateful.
02:18Congratulations.
02:18No, and I would just add that Netflix has been really supportive of the show from the
02:25start.
02:26Like, you know, one of our executives over there who was very instrumental in getting
02:31the show acquired by them was somebody that we worked with on, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
02:38And oddly enough, I had pitched the show to another executive over there, Tracy Bacosta,
02:44when she was at NBC and she wanted to buy it.
02:46And so it was just like, we had some people that loved the show from the second it aired
02:53in season one or when we pitched it.
02:56And so when it was potentially available, they were very interested.
03:01And so that felt wonderful.
03:03Yeah.
03:04It's like the best kind of success story.
03:06It's nice to be wanted.
03:07Yeah, exactly.
03:08I like being wanted.
03:09Meredith, you know, three seasons in, you know, I've gotten the chance to watch you guys
03:14a couple times today just interacting.
03:16There's an event earlier than earlier tonight.
03:20You know.
03:20Oh, no.
03:21No.
03:21I mean, just like the excitement that you all have around each other, the way that you
03:26interact, literally singing and harmonizing just out of nowhere.
03:30I'm truly curious.
03:32We're always on a high school trip.
03:34Yeah.
03:34It is.
03:35It is.
03:35It's like old lady glamour over here who's been on four billion television shows.
03:39It is the thing that is like so exhausting where it's like, but we really love each other.
03:43And I have just, I will just fully say that if I've ever said it before, it's not like this.
03:49You know what I mean?
03:50It is like, this is like the realest, most intense friendship that I, and love that I've
03:55ever had with the people that I make a show with.
03:58They had a sleepover at your house, Paula, right?
04:00Like you had a slumber party.
04:02Slumber party.
04:02You did?
04:03Upstate New York.
04:03It had some beer.
04:04I'm kidding.
04:05I'm kidding.
04:05I was in that.
04:08She was there.
04:09Well, Meredith, I'm curious, like as you're crafting, you know, a season and thinking about
04:14how these characters are interacting, like, do you use their own kind of characteristics,
04:19the way they interact with each other?
04:21Does that inform how you write at this point, knowing?
04:24I mean, we, yeah, we sort of glean little, I mean, they have a joke that I have in weekly
04:29meetings with their therapists because sometimes like things that feel true to, you know, their
04:36own lives.
04:36Meredith wrote, did you know?
04:38Meredith writes like, I don't even know what's happening.
04:41You're channeling some other.
04:43You're a witch a little bit.
04:44A witch.
04:44Yeah.
04:44No, they're a joy to write for.
04:48I mean, it's bananas.
04:49They're just all so talented.
04:51And it's just fun, like, you know, yes, we do sort of pull different things in from
04:56life.
04:56Like this season on the road, Paula's character, Gloria, is like picking up every animal that
05:06gets hit by the van or whatever and resuscitating it back to life.
05:10And, you know, I feel like that's very true.
05:13You know, she has a, basically an animal, elder animal sanctuary and is such an animal lover.
05:19And so, like, we do kind of put a little, like, put little parts of them into their characters.
05:27And also just like, you know that when they're all four together on screen, it's kind of going
05:34to be, like, bursting off the screen.
05:38Like, they just have such great chemistry and it's just really fun to watch them.
05:42Um, Renee, I read a quote that you, you talked about how, you know, as a, as a female actor,
05:47you're often playing characters in support of other people.
05:51Um, but in this case, you're supporting other women, but you're also, I feel like each one
05:55of these characters is so just completely fully developed in their own people, you know, kind
06:01of separately as part of a group.
06:02I'm kind of curious, like, if you could tell me a little bit about what makes that so wonderful
06:08to be with this group of women and support each other on, on screen.
06:12There's so much that's wonderful about it.
06:14Um, yeah, I think it's, um, it's something that people say about women, that somehow or
06:22another, there's always a competitiveness.
06:25And it's like this lie that there's only so much, um, as opposed to the fact that there's
06:30just abundance.
06:31And, um, in my career, I've always tried to debunk that.
06:36Um, anytime anyone ever put me in a situation where I was going to compete with somebody,
06:40it's, I, I, I feel like there's always been this thing between me and any other woman that
06:45was like, it's not me against you, it's us against them.
06:50And, um, and, and I, and I feel that way here.
06:52I felt that way all, I feel, I feel that way all the time.
06:55It's the only, it's the only sanity that kind of exists for us.
07:00And, um, what I love about this show is that it proves this so, um, amazingly because there
07:07are really four leads on this show.
07:09And it's a 20, how, how, how many minutes are in each episode?
07:13About 24.
07:1424 minutes in a show.
07:16And somehow or another, I don't think any of us are, are watching it feeling like how
07:21come she gets to, and why is she, and she's hanging, that just does not happen on other
07:26shows.
07:27It feels, um, probably the greatest story I think we have on the show is watching other
07:33people, watching their bits are, are, are almost more joyous for us than our own.
07:38Almost.
07:40Wait, I will say, see, witnessing Renee watch, who, what do you have a master's in what?
07:47Jazz.
07:47In master's in jazz.
07:49Vocal jazz.
07:50And watching her watch busy scat for, oh my God.
07:55Guess what guys?
07:56Like an hour.
07:57I wish, I wish she was a Loyola Marymount University.
08:00And honestly, second semester sophomore year didn't really go.
08:03It is the greatest, I mean, three seasons in, the greatest joy I have.
08:09And most of it didn't even make the show, but literally.
08:12It was, it was so long.
08:14It was impossible.
08:15We should do, I wish we could just put out an hour of it.
08:16Her scatting just brought me so much joy.
08:17So that's, I think that's what we love.
08:19And, and it's easy for me to say because my character gets to have all this really bad
08:23behavior, um, because my character's always kind of gets to be in the middle or wear the
08:28craziest outfit or sing after the song is over.
08:32Just keep licking and riffing and singing higher.
08:35So, um, so I'm not going to lie.
08:38I mean, there have definitely been times in my life where I, there was three of us and I was
08:41like, how am I going to get in the middle of these three girls?
08:43Um, and I don't have to do that here because my character is obnoxious.
08:47Um, so it just frees me up to love them so much.
08:52But there's also an ease.
08:54I, for me at least, I feel like there's an ease and a trust in the writing and that,
08:59and a knowledge like deeply that, um, because Meredith and the writing team are so great at
09:08what they're, the story that they're servicing that I, I don't ever even think about is summer
09:18going to, is this going to pay off?
09:20Is there a thing?
09:21How is this going to work for my character?
09:24Because I just tried like inherently have this trust in the auspices and the team that
09:31is telling the story, which is like, that's the freedom too, because I have been in situations
09:36before where you feel like, well, I better come to set with 10 extra jokes prepped because
09:43I also know that the dude is going to try to steal my fucking punchline.
09:46So I better have another one at the ready because that guy's going to fucking take it.
09:51And I won't name names except I will in my next book.
09:54No, I'm kidding.
09:54I'm just, I'm teasing.
09:55But like, but you know what I mean?
09:56And that I think is part of it as well.
09:58Yeah.
09:59Yeah.
09:59That's true.
10:00Sarah, I feel like you're often playing the most grounded of this crew, this team of cartoon
10:05characters.
10:06As in life.
10:06Yeah.
10:06Yeah.
10:07Yeah.
10:07I mean, is that, does that come naturally to you in a way?
10:11I mean, is it hard to kind of maintain a composure or like, do you want to like-
10:15I wish you slowly fell off your chair.
10:17You're just like-
10:19Um, oh gosh.
10:21You know, I think what's been so fun.
10:23And I have to say, having a career as a solo artist for so much of my life, this has been
10:31such a tremendous joy to feel like a part of a team.
10:36And it's something that I got a taste of when I first started working in the theater.
10:39And especially when I went on stage in, in Waitress was what I went in on stage with and
10:47um, just getting for the first time to really feel like you're just a part of this whole ensemble.
10:57Um, it's even different than playing with a band, which I have played with incredible
11:01bands over my career.
11:02But, um, this job in particular is just, it, like you were saying, it just is such a beautiful
11:08ensemble piece.
11:09And I think that we all get to be so shiny in our own ways.
11:13And one of the ways I feel most realized in this character is in her sort of taking in,
11:21I get to be a little bit of the bridge to the audience of like taking in the insanity and
11:28the delicious, you know, antics of these women who we all are just a little bit on the fringe
11:35and I'm just maybe one micro step like planted in reality, but less and less so as we go further
11:43and further into the show.
11:45Yeah.
11:45So, and it's fun, like as you do, you sort of like start drinking the Kool-Aid and, and
11:50I think it's, it's been so lovely, especially in this season as my character is pregnant this
11:56season and, and also it doesn't become like the centerpiece.
12:01She gets to stay really vibrant and, um, attached to her dreams.
12:06And I love seeing these women go for it and take big swings and sort of have ridiculous
12:13dreams, realizing that the dreaming is not the ridiculous part.
12:17All the rest of the shit is ridiculous.
12:19You know what I mean?
12:20It's like the dreaming big is not the ridiculous piece.
12:22And, um, yeah, so I really love that role in this, in this little machine here.
12:29And it's just so fun to watch her pretend to learn how to write a song.
12:34There's just nothing more joyful than her have to try to, just like such great acting.
12:40It's so wonderful.
12:43It's like such a great thing.
12:44Um, Busy, something I really loved about your character this season is the kind of the,
12:49the arc about choosing your own wardrobe, which your character is already wearing some of
12:55the most insane looks in the world.
12:57And then when she's left her own devices, then goes crazier.
13:01I was curious, you know, I know of you, you know, I feel like we're contemporaries.
13:05I was a teenager watching you on TV and I'm curious if that kind of hit home a little bit
13:10as someone who was performing and on television at that time and, and kind of looking back
13:15on it as like a, in a, in a cartoonish, fun, light, levity, levity way.
13:22Well, I think that there are so many things.
13:24Yeah, there's a lot there.
13:24I'm so sorry.
13:25There are so many things.
13:27First of all, like I, I think that any person probably, but I can speak to my experience
13:34as a woman of my age, which is that like, I think that a lot of women hit a point in their
13:42lives, whether they're like, it's in their mid thirties, late thirties, forties, where
13:47they sort of take stock of all of the things that have amounted, that have been added up
13:54and have become the sum of what they are.
13:57And I think especially culturally, like Gen X women, uh, have a really unique perspective
14:08and experience in terms of, you know, coming of age in the nineties where we're dealing
14:14with Monica Lewinsky and the public eye and we're being sent messages about, um, you know,
14:21Lorena Bobbitt and, uh, you know, what, what the Long Island Lolita, right?
14:25Like she was 15 years old, like she's a child.
14:29Um, and then moving into this, this, yeah, the, the messages that pop culture was sending
14:35us.
14:36Right.
14:36And, and so like, actually the wardrobe part of it is super interesting to me.
14:41And I think sort of metaphorically, like a bigger thing, obviously, which is like, you
14:47reach a point, I think as a woman where you take stock and you're like, but wait, what
14:52do I like and like, who am I and do I like watching football on Sundays and making these
15:02fucking dips or have I just been doing this because of a guy and now it's just a part of
15:11myself that I have just conditioned my brain to think that I fucking like this.
15:16I do not like this anyway.
15:19So that's that part of it.
15:22And I think, and then, and then the secondary part of it is like, yes, I think that I actually
15:29do have a very unique experience of having, you know, been sitting in a casting office
15:35at age 20 and being told that if I am not on the cover or if I don't get into the pages
15:41of Maxim magazine or I don't do stuff magazine or one of the things, if I don't basically
15:47put on my fucking underwear and put my, get myself in a magazine, I, and this is a quote,
15:53have no shot of having a film career.
15:56Okay.
15:57So what do you do with that at age 20?
15:59I was like, I guess I got to do fucking stuff magazine or Maxim magazine, crawl around on
16:04a floor of, you know, siren studios for half a day in my underwear.
16:10And that's brutal.
16:13You know, it's brutal that like Anne Hathaway had to sit across from Matt Lauer and discuss
16:19a violation of her privacy as if that's like a normal thing we should be asking.
16:25It's fucking insane that Hannah Waddington has to be asked to show her leg.
16:30Like I'm wearing no clothes right now, but that is because that is my choice.
16:34But I do think that how Meredith is able to like take the, the situations from the nineties
16:40and, and how we, what we were all sort of subjected to and conditioned by and shine a light
16:48on it while making us laugh and not feel ever that she's, that we're preaching about the
16:57sins of the past because the fact is we all fucking know at this point what it was.
17:03And we're still, and we're still fighting it, you know, daily.
17:06So it's, it is a release to laugh at it, you know, because I laughed so hard at my cover
17:14of Maxim UK because I don't know if you know, my film career went fucking great.
17:27White chicks is having a moment.
17:29Let me tell you something about white chicks.
17:30Oh my God.
17:37All right.
17:37Paula.
17:38Yeah.
17:40I didn't even really write down a question as much as it is a comment because I feel like
17:45you, I literally wrote down, you're playing one of the funniest queer characters I've seen
17:48on modern TV.
17:49I truly like, especially this season, it is truly like knocking it out of the park.
17:55I get so much joy that I am, uh, 60 years old and I'm sorry, Meredith, I know I'm probably
18:03not supposed to tell people I'm 60 years old.
18:05I'm a little older than everyone else.
18:06I've told you never.
18:08I'm using a lot.
18:09What are you talking about?
18:10You're allowed to.
18:11I'm using a lot of night, night creams.
18:13Um, I love that I am the one that is the oldest one in the, in the group and I'm the
18:19one getting all the action this season.
18:20And these foxes, this assassin's row of foxes is like, like walking through the season and
18:28I'm like always either putting my clothes on or taking them off and drinking a lot of,
18:33there's a, there's a scene.
18:34Did you guys see the scene with the, me drinking the Gatorade?
18:39Oh, well, I'm topless in one of the scenes and I'm, I'm just doing this to, she's waiting
18:44to talk to me by the vending machine at the hotel and I'm drinking a Gatorade post, one
18:50of the women that I'm trying to hook up with because I have a spreadsheet of the 178 types
18:55of women that I'm going to score before I go back to my ex-wife and I'm drinking a Gatorade
19:01and just going like this completely full titty out.
19:05So I'm thrilled to play this.
19:07I'm thrilled to play a gray haired, like, you know, older queer lady that's actually
19:14getting it.
19:15Yeah.
19:17Earlier today, Renee, you were literally just quoting the show, quoting other people's lines
19:23mostly.
19:24Are there ever lines that are just like too much to handle?
19:28Like even just like you delivering, like you have trouble getting it out or like Renee
19:33says something and you're like, what the hell?
19:35Is that a question to all of us?
19:37Yes.
19:37Everybody jump in there.
19:39One is jumping to my brain because it was one of the first, it was the first scene that
19:44the four of us shot together.
19:46This is in the pilot episode.
19:48And I could not, Busy's line was, Ashley's a bench now, Dawn.
19:58Because there's a bench with Ashley after she died.
20:01Ashley was our, our member who swam off an infinity pool.
20:05I'm a bench now.
20:07And died.
20:08And now we have a dedicated bench.
20:10And Busy, so sincerely, a little bit tipsy in the scene.
20:15I mean, Summer, a little bit tipsy in the scene, is telling me, oh, oh, well, we can't
20:19ask Ashley.
20:20Ashley's a bench now, Dawn.
20:22And I was laughing so fucking hard, but also getting this little glimpse of what our life
20:31was going to be like.
20:32It was the fucking best.
20:34It was so amazing.
20:36And it's only gotten better and richer and more just exciting and rich and delicious since
20:42then.
20:43It's just been amazing.
20:44It's amazing.
20:45Sometimes it's, sometimes it's the lines because they're genius.
20:48And people actually give me credit.
20:49A friend of mine that I grew up with said, I heard you in an interview and you described
20:52your mouth as a t-shirt gun of wisdom.
20:56He said, and he's known me since he was a child.
20:58He's like, you're really smart.
21:00He just thought I was so savvy to say that.
21:02I just didn't have the heart to tell him that I didn't write it.
21:04I forgot about that.
21:07That's such a good line.
21:08But what I, sometimes it's not the lines.
21:12I remember in this season I had to walk in in this red outfit where the pants were also
21:17boots.
21:18I don't, you probably didn't get to see that.
21:20And I had to walk in in the first episode and announce to the group that I had saved the
21:26day because I had booked Radio City Music Hall on Thanksgiving morning and spent all of
21:35our money.
21:36Like I couldn't get it out because it was just the most ridiculously stupid thing.
21:41And your character was so proud of her.
21:43So proud.
21:44She was like, I fixed it.
21:46And then they were like, isn't that Thanksgiving morning?
21:49And I'm like, you know, well, that must have been why it was available.
21:53You're welcome.
21:54And then I walk out and then there's like these, there's like these automatic doors in
21:58the hotel and I say, open.
22:00And then they open and close.
22:01It's ridiculous.
22:02And, and on top of the brilliance of the humor, there's a very Girls 5 Eva thing that always
22:07happens to us, that there's like this life imitating art.
22:11So we're trying to shoot this episode in a hotel that's actually functioning.
22:17It was still open.
22:18We couldn't shut the lobby out.
22:20And there are families coming in.
22:22The whole week there'd be a family like from Wisconsin walking in going.
22:26They were so pissed off at us.
22:28And I was literally like, right before I shot, I like said to a whole family that came out
22:31in their bathing suit because it's like a Marriott Divorce Dad suite.
22:34Let's kind of like, I'm literally like, we'll be one second.
22:38And then there was a constant.
22:39And the phone kept ringing.
22:41Yeah, the phone kept ringing.
22:42Yeah, the hotel lobby phones were not turned off.
22:46Yeah.
22:46The hardest I laughed this year, line wise, was a line of Renee's at this diner restaurant
22:54booth.
22:55And she says, we're saying like, why is he eating here?
23:01You know, he's like a Harry Styles character in the show this season.
23:04And why is he eating at this macaroni rascals?
23:07And it's like, because it makes him feel safe.
23:09It makes him feel, you know.
23:11It's comfortable.
23:12Yeah.
23:12In your line, do you remember it?
23:14You said.
23:15You said, oh, I know the feeling.
23:18Whatever town we're in, I go to the local church and I sing with the choir and I just
23:24destroy them.
23:27Just destroy.
23:27I murder them.
23:28I just destroy them.
23:29I just destroy them.
23:31And I just could not, I could not stop laughing.
23:34I could not stop laughing at that every time you said it.
23:37It is such a gift to have these words in our mouth and have these situations and to do
23:43it with these people in these costumes.
23:45And even in the absurd things that happen to our actual, in our actual lives at the moment,
23:50it feels, it really does feel like a gift.
23:54Since you're talking about lines, I do want to just say our biggest thrill is to be in a
23:59show where people laugh out loud when they're watching it.
24:02And I feel like there's really a lack of that now.
24:05And there's brilliant shows that are being called comedies, but they aren't as much of
24:12a hard comedy.
24:13And I love them.
24:15And they're amazing.
24:16And they have incredible stories and incredible characters and heart-wrenching and incredible.
24:21But, you know, I came from SNL and I am used to hearing laughs.
24:25I'm used to hearing people laugh.
24:27But also, like, even at SNL, we would love to have some little moment that was very human
24:32or very, you know, I always used to write losers and, like, funny, weird losers.
24:37And I love, I love to have that vulnerability.
24:40But Meredith and her writing staff, like, they really know how to write things that I have
24:46people in the street all the time now saying, I heard my relative, you know, my relative in
24:51the other room scream laughing at something, pounding on the table.
24:55That's what I wish there was more of on television right now.
25:01Well, I agree.
25:02And, again, what an incredible show.
25:05Congratulations on your third season.
25:06And thank you so much for joining us tonight.
25:08Thanks, everybody.
25:09Thanks, everybody.
25:09Thanks, everybody.
25:12Oh, my God.
25:14E, E, E.
25:15Yeah, baby.
25:17That's the energy.
25:19Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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