With a June 29 Season 2 release date announced for Netflix‘s GLOW just days ago out of Rome—where star Alison Brie was on hand for the See What’s Next event—actress Betty Gilpin was on hand in Tribeca yesterday to hype the coming season of her Netflix series, teasing a bit of what’s to come.
“Debbie dies in the first episode of Season 2—I’m just kidding,” the actress said. “We pick up a couple weeks after Season 1 ended, and they’ve been picked up to series, and now it’s about them making the show, and strangely, about females finding their voices as creators and creatives behind the scenes.”
Based on the real Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling—a syndicated women’s wrestling circuit operating throughout the 1980s—GLOW is a fictionalized look at a bunch of struggling actresses and misfits finding unexpected camaraderie and satisfying self-expression in the act of wrestling.
Sitting down with Deadline yesterday, Gilpin reflected back on what initially drew her to the series. “After auditioning for and playing a lot of ‘Jargon Neighbor’ and ‘Weird Friend With One Line And A Crossed Eye Who Gets Cut Out,’ I was really attracted to this project, just for the number of lines on the page,” the actress joked. “But also, I was really excited about it because I feel like—maybe all actors feel this way—that they have this sort of gravitas clown trapped inside of them that might not ever get a chance to come out.”
“I think particularly actresses are never asked to show that side of themselves, and I think [taking on a voice and crossing her eyes] ‘the climate is changing, in a really exciting way,’—but I do think it is,” Gilpin continued. “And GLOW wants everyone’s gravitas clowns to come out, and wrestle, and cry, and scream.”
Gilpin also touched on her newfound love of wrestling, found in the making of the Netflix original, “which is a very strange turn for my life to take.”
“I love wrestling, which is so strange, but it was the first time that my whole body was being asked to be a part of a character, instead of just the neck up and, from the neck down, posing and trying not to get fired,” the actress deadpanned. “So I love it—I mean, it does feel like 6,000 car accidents in an hour; I feel 60 to 70 years older than when I started GLOW. All of my bones make sounds now, and I might die five years earlier than if I never got this job.”
To hear more from Deadline’s conversations with GLOW‘s Betty Gilpin—as she discusses putting her own frustrations with acting into the character of Debbie Eagan—take a look above.
The Deadline Studio at Tribeca is presented by Nespresso.