In this edition of THR Frontrunners, Girls5Eva creator and showrunner Meredith Scardino and stars Renée Elise Goldsberry, Sara Bareilles, Busy Phillips and Paula Pell joined The Hollywood Reporter‘s Tyler Coates for a conversation about the third season of the Netflix comedy series at a live event hosted by the San Vincente Bungalows in Los Angeles.
“It was heavenly,” said Pell about the streamer picking up the series — the first two seasons of which aired on Peacock — for its third season. “It’s like art imitating life: Our characters have second chances.”
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Scardino added that a lot of the comedy, which follows the exploits of a turn-of-the-millennium girl group who are thrust back into the spotlight decades later when a Gen-Z rapper samples their pop hit, is sparked from the four stars’ incredible bond both on- and off-camera. “They have a joke that I have weekly meetings with their therapists,” said the showrunner. “We do pull different things in from life. In this season, Paula’s character Gloria is picking up every animal that gets hit by the van. [Paula] basically has an elder animal shelter — we do put little parts of them in their characters.”
For Goldsberry, best known for her Tony-winning performance in Broadway’s Hamilton, Girls5Eva offered the rare opportunity for an actress: to play among an ensemble of compassionate and supportive women. “Something people say about women is that there’s always a competitiveness,” she said. “In my career, I’ve always tried to debunk that. I feel like there’s always been this thing between me and any other woman that was like, ‘It’s not me against you, it’s us against them.'” Goldsberry explained that the show allows for the four leads to support one another rather than compete for screen time. “[There are] 24 minutes in the show, and I don’t think any of us are watching it feeling like, ‘How come she gets to do that?’ Possibly the greatest joy comes from watching other people [do] their bits [on the show].”
Bareilles, also known for her work on Broadway as well as her career as a singer-songwriter, admitted that Girls5Eva felt like the first time she was in a real band. “Having a career as a solo artist for most of my life, this has been a tremendous joy, to feel like part of a team,” she said. “I have played with incredible bands over my career, but this job in particular … is such a beautiful ensemble piece. We all get to be so shiny in our own ways. And one of the ways I feel most realized in this character is I get to be a little bit of the bridge to the audience, of taking in the insanity and the delicious antics of these women who all are just a little bit on the fringe.”
For Phillips, who first earned attention as a young actress on Freaks and Geeks, spoke about how she related to her character, Summer, in terms of how the comedy reframes the toxic and sexist media landscape of the late ’90s. “I think a lot of women hit a point in their lives, whether they’re in their late-30s and 40s, where they take stock of all the things that amounted and added up to the become the sum of what they are,” said Phillips. “Especially culturally, Gen-X women have a really unique perspective and experience of coming of age in the ’90s.” She also praised Scardino for weaving such heady material into the cartoonishly silly comedy: “Meredith is able to take the situations from the ’90s, what we were all subjected to and conditioned by, and shine a light on it while making us laugh,” Phillips continued. “[It never feels like] we’re preaching about thes ins of the past — because the fact is we all fucking know at this point.”
This edition of THR Frontrunners is brought to you by Universal Studio Group and Netflix.
