GLOW Star On The Show's Nudity, Being Trained By Former WWE Wrestler, Taking Bumps, Original GLOW
On episode 141 of Sam Roberts' Wrestling Podcast, pro wrestling enthusiast and podcaster Sam Roberts talked to Alison Brie and Marc Maron from the new GLOW series by Netflix. During the interview, which first aired on the Jim & Sam Show, Brie talked about being trained by Chavo Guerrero, Jr., bumping all day, watching the GLOW documentary and meeting with the cast members from the original GLOW series. Also, Brie and Maron discussed the show's ample nudity.
According to Brie, she knew pro wrestling fans get mad when shows do not get the genre right and the series had Guerrero as trainer to lend some expertise and credibility from the pro wrestling world.
"I know [fans get mad when shows do not do pro wrestling right]! We were a bit nervous about that ourselves! But we trained with Chavo Guerrero, Jr., who is a pro wrestler and is from a wrestling legacy. His father was a pro wrestlers, so it's major. He was the real expert on everything and taught the moves and the nomenclature." Brie added, "Chavo is the best and Chavo's uncle, Mando Guerrero, trained the original women of GLOW, so that's like a cool connection."
Brie went on to say that the actors would come up with their own moves and Guerrero would have to tell them that those moves were not invented in the time period of GLOW.
"We would bring in moves and be like, 'look at this cool move! Let's do that!' And he'd be like, 'no, that move wasn't invented until 1994. We can't do that on this show.'"
Brie noted that she never got injured learning the ropes in the squared circle despite practicing for hours on end.
"No, no [Brie was never hurt] because they were really good about safety with us." Brie continued, "oh yeah [the actors learned how to bump]! All day, every day, front bump, back bump?"
When asked whether the characters from her GLOW series were based on original GLOW performers, Brie mentioned that they did not portray actual GLOW personalities, but there are similarities.
"No, and it's important to note that because none of the lives of these characters are real. They're all fictitious, so it's more taking off the premise of GLOW. There are real things about it. The fact that the women who auditioned for GLOW, the women wrestlers who were on GLOW, they were not wrestlers. They were similar to us. They were actresses who were just at different places in their [lives] and auditioned for this wrestling show and they had very intense training with Mando Guerrero."
Although Maron did not watch the GLOW documentary prior to starting work on the Netflix GLOW series, Brie mentioned that she watched it for context. Brie, who played Ruth Wilder on the show, stated that the original GLOW performers have been very supportive and helpful, but not heavily involved in the new GLOW.
"I watched the documentary, which was really very interesting to hear all the women talk about their experience working on GLOW and so I could just get more of an idea of what a hit it was, like how quickly it landed with so many people." Brie claimed, "they've been very supportive of our show, but we really weren't [meeting with the original GLOW performers] because we didn't want to be stealing explicit details from their lives. Ruth is her own character. We're not trying to imply that any of the women on that show slept with a married guy or any stuff like that, so you want to create your own person from the inside out."
With respect to the show's nudity, Brie joked that it may have been included to gain male viewership as the show is really female-driven.
"[Co-star] Betty [Gilpin] has sort of talked about that, the nudity, and our bodies, that exploitation has been like the trojan horse of the show where we're smuggling in real, intimate stories of these women's lives under the guise of, like, t–s and ass and women wrestling!"
Maron shared that cast member had to be willing to be naked at some point in the first season of GLOW, but he did not want to get fully naked and became self-conscious of his butt.
"I had to sign the nudity thing and I knew that after what she did, like, I had to be willing to be naked. I really had this thing where it was only fair, but when it came down to the nude scene, I was like, 'can we go no cock?' Yeah, [they honored the request], but there is an ass shot and I had to walk around the set with a damn cock sock on. It's a weird, dumb thing, but I was worried about my ass. I took selfies of my ass to make sure it looked alright before I did the ass shot. Like, I just didn't want any pimples or anything on my butt. Yeah, I might need some ass makeup."
Brie admitted that she thought the show's nudity was done well because it was realistic.
"I will say I like how they used nudity on this show and on Orange Is The New Black. It's women again taking ownership of that nudity and not doing it in a way? You sort of catch people in nude moments or changing their clothes or whatever and it's not super, 'I look sexual and perfect in this moment of being naked!' It's more sort of, realistic nudity, which I like. A person's changing [her] shirt and you see her t–s."
Check out the podcast here. If you use any of the quotes from this article, please credit Sam Roberts' Wrestling Podcast with an H/T to WrestlingINC for the transcription.
Source: Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast