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Alison Brie has been making the rounds promoting her upcoming Netflix show GLOW and I couldn’t be more excited about it. That’s because (1) it stars Alison Brie, who we all love, (2) it’s a TV show based on a real-life professional wrestling organization, and (3) Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling (GLOW) was one of the wackiest wrestling promotions ever so the stories should be fantastic.
However, after a screening of her new series at the ATX Television Festival in Austin on Sunday Brie and GLOW co-star Betty Gilpin discussed how much things have changed since the original GLOW TV show was on the air back in the 1980s.
Reports Entertainment Weekly…
“It has not changed that much,” said Brie. “The audition process has not changed that much.”
Both Brie and Gilpin made it clear that GLOW’s casting environment was very much the opposite of some of their previous experiences, including Brie’s audition for HBO’s Entourage. “Early in my career, I auditioned for three lines on an episode of Entourage that I had to go on in a bikini!” she said. “Or like shorts and the tiniest shorts. And they were like, ‘Okay, can you take your top off now?’” (EW has reached out to HBO for a comment about the story.)
Gilpin remembered auditioning for a room full of men, one of whom asked her to take her hair down after she completed the scene. GLOW casting director Jennifer Euston replied, “That’s gross.”
Brie also pointed to the lack of interesting roles for women. “I’ve gone through auditions for Marvel movies and auditioned a million times for roles with three lines and you are begging for them,” she shared. “And I’d be glad to get them! It’s brutal, it just is.”
For reference this is how the original GLOW promotion cast their wrestlers, according to Wikipedia…
The syndicated GLOW TV show was produced for four seasons (1986–1990) from the Riviera Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. Seasons 3 and 4 were in fact, filmed at a former warehouse building approximately three miles east of the Riviera hotel which is currently a Harley-Davidson outlet. During the casting for the pilot, not all of the women were taking it seriously, so Mando Guerrero put one woman in a submission hold and made her cry. They cast twelve women for the show and trained them for six weeks prior to the shoot. They wrestled approximately eight matches per show, which eventually was sold. Some of the women moved to Las Vegas to continue working with the promotion. The show itself differed from Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in that they had actual seasons where some wrestlers were dropped, changed or added before the new season began. Each season consisted of 26 episodes that were each rerun once to complete the year, with a total of 104 episodes produced.
Amazing, right? If this Netflix show is anything like the original, it’s going to be must-see TV. Check out some of these highlights from the real thing back in the day…
— Commentators for GLOW included Miles Headlock (a computer generated knock-off of Max Headroom), and “Motormouth” Mike Morgan.
— Steve Blance was the senior referee in season two before becoming GLOW’s “commissioner” in seasons three and four. He was always the recipient of a GLOW Girl beatdown in season two.
— Johnny Cafarella (as “Johnny C.”) hosted seasons 3 and 4, was the figurehead owner (buying David McLane’s “interest” in a storyline) and also served as company manager after the departure of McLane in 1987.
— Jackie Stallone (Sylvester Stallone’s mother) was the figurehead owner and manager of the Good Girls, and Aunt Kitty (Kitty Burke) was the manager for the Bad Girls.
— Each of the GLOW performers had her own rap song (personalized lyrics using the same backing track). It was shown on videotape prior to that wrestler’s match. Similar to other wrestling promotions’ use of wrestler-specific entrance themes, this gimmick may have been influenced by the Chicago Bears’ “Super Bowl Shuffle”.
This show is going to be so much fun…
GLOW debuts on Netflix on June 23rd.