- 6/4/2025
'Étoile' showrunners Amy-Sherman Palladino and Daniel Palladino chat with THR's Beatrice Verhoeven to talk all about the Prime Video series during a THR Frontrunners conversation.
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00:00it's a funny weird strange but incredibly dedicated soulful world and we just sort of
00:07wanted to show all of it so that people don't think that ballet is this weird rarefied you've
00:13got to have a you know tuxedo and a monocle to go we're going to welcome to the stage
00:23amy sherman paladino and daniel paladino i'd love to start off with um you know ballet takes center
00:34stage no pun intended in its wall um this isn't your first time that you've created a show based
00:41on the art you explore the subject in your 2013 series bunheads and one of your gilmore girls
00:46supporting character was a ballet teacher what made you want to dive deeper or even deeper into
00:52the world of ballet i was a dancer uh supposed to be a dancer and so i grew up in that world and
00:59most of the stuff that i've seen uh done around the ballet world it's usually like oh they're so
01:05pretty and fluffy on stage and then then off stage they push each other off of buildings and murder
01:10each other which which happens especially at abt no i'm kidding um it it it's it's just that there's
01:17so much more to it than that you know they're they're actually a really interesting group of
01:22people they're you know they're the it's it's the one art form where you're guaranteed to never make
01:27a dime you're just gonna die poor and then your career will be over at 25 and you'll be teaching
01:32pilates and you've spent your entire life in class training giving up everything to because it's just
01:39for the pure love of this art form and i i find that miraculous and they're also they're just like a
01:46kind of a weird they're culty kind of like they're like puppies and they they kind of crawl on each
01:52other a lot they're always like touching each other and rolling around on the ground and doing weird
01:56push-ups and like you know they never rest you know they're always like stretching or throwing girls
02:01up in the air you'll walk in and like they're doing like four or five perilous things they just
02:06they're just like athletes and they're balancing it's like it's like traveling with a circus it's a funny
02:11weird strange but incredibly dedicated soulful world and we just sort of wanted to show all of
02:18it so that people don't think that ballet is this weird rarefied you've got to have a you know tuxedo
02:25and a monocle to go you know it's like it's that's actually not the world it's very it's very athletic
02:33and energetic and exciting and strange and mysterious and romantic and aromatic very aromatic
02:40very very scented so i just i just think that there was just a lot that we wanted to put out
02:48there because of our great admiration for dancers daniel i see you nodding along to amy's words
02:54it's what's kept the marriage together this long so that's uh i was curious that's just the way it
03:03is we've been doing a lot of these panels so at this point it's like all all gloves are off tonight
03:07it's sort of like it's our last one it's like fantastic news for me i'd love to talk to you guys
03:14about writing the script um specifically for this show you i believe wrote the script in english and
03:21then it was translated to french for the french speaking parts is that right yeah because we
03:25don't speak french so it would be weird doing it the other way accurate yeah i mean we and we went
03:30through many translators we we kind of we we use charlotte gainsberg and um and ludolage mainly as our
03:37judges because they knew they knew they were familiar with what we had mazel and all that stuff and
03:43gilmore girls i think and they knew about the snap and they really wanted to do that they were really
03:49interested in in doing the the and doing it in english which neither one of them have really done
03:53comedy in english like that before but comedy we kept getting we kept getting head shaking
03:59it's like how about these translations like no no oh you're not going to be happy no this is not
04:05that will not make you happy they will not their worst thing they said is like well it's the words
04:11it's like well okay it's like getting notes from a network yeah well there's words on the page yeah it's
04:16like we wanted to be more than the words so we finally found this really great lady um who they
04:22had both worked with before who's really really knows both languages uh inside and out so so we and
04:29she was on set with us and uh you know she was with us with us the whole way so there was something
04:35funny about also the french scenes like charlotte up against uh the sort of cultural minister because
04:42in france the person who's in charge of the ballet that person uh reports to the cultural minister
04:50who is in the government so it's a different kind of job so she's dealing with ballet is government
04:56subsidized in france what's that like they got health care and paid leave and retirement
05:03they go on strike they go on strike they want to yeah so we you know so we we we wanted to make sure
05:11it had the snap and then we also wanted to make sure that it it didn't feel false to a french
05:16audience that we're just sort of doing americanisms and all that stuff and some of our idioms that we
05:22had translated very either didn't translate or translated very strangely into french they don't
05:28have a lot of this they don't have a lot of the sayings that we have here no we need a lot of sayings
05:32in america and france are like there's only one word for it why do you need four words for the same
05:36thing it's like i was like well i don't know you're you're right but welcome to america more more more
05:43you mentioned lou who um learned to speak english uh for the show did she learn she said she wasn't a
05:55fluent she was not she still isn't she's so lovely i love lou delage so much especially since i kept
06:02forgetting in my excitement of working with her because anytime you got to work with lou it was
06:07like a really fun day because she's sort of like unlike her character she's she's a very smiley sunny
06:12positive excited person and uh i would run up to her and start giving direction you know really fast
06:20with the hand gestures and then realize like halfway through like oh god she literally does not
06:24understand a word i'm saying to her and she's just waiting for me to shut up and she's just gonna go
06:29back and try something else you see the lou delage glaze kind of curtain down just she sort of starts
06:34to stare off above your head she did mention um in an interview that you know obviously your shows
06:44are they have a rhythm to it and you know for someone who isn't a fluent english speaker that's
06:52probably especially daunting so i was curious how those conversations went with lou how you prepared
06:57her for that kind of cadence of the dialogue she she worked i think both she and charlotte but
07:02especially lou did a lot of work with that same translator i mean hours and hours on each scene
07:09she she worked like with her coach uh before table reads so like she needed the script for a table read
07:16two weeks before the table we're not known for early scripts so it was quite the challenge for us
07:22we hold on to information but she needed it because she wanted to come to the table
07:27you know some people go to table reads and they treat it like nothing and they do the whole thing
07:31you know eating a bagel and you can't understand a word they say but you know
07:34don't you let alex hear you say that but some people work really really hard and this
07:42this cast and i think a lot of it is because of the two language thing like
07:46a i think the the the non-english speakers really wanted to you know come come up and be as as good
07:55as the english speakers and i think all of our english speakers really wanted to support our
08:00it's a great cast like these people are unbelievably generous and kind to each other and they were
08:05really supportive of each other so like nobody showed up at table read and didn't give a hundred
08:09percent because that would affect somebody else so charlotte and and lou they worked really hard at
08:15everything at every step of them and and lou had to go to ballet class and pilates and it was just
08:21like there was like so much that went into this part that she had to do god love her i'd love to talk
08:27more about the casting because you have um actors who you've worked with before luke herby and getting
08:32like for example then we talked about hiring english and french speakers but then you also had to hire
08:37dancers and actors who can dance and vice versa i'd love for you guys to kind of talk about how you found
08:46that balance in the casting process it took forever we we had to put first for the dance companies we had to
08:53basically put 20 professional grade dancers in each country that took a long time we're basically in america we
09:02luckily we we got to borrow tyler peck and unity phelan and we had robbie fairchild and we had um
09:09benjamin uh benjamin freemantle we had some real pros but we had to like really just fan out and see
09:17this person who was tired from the royal ballet would they like to come and do this we tried to give all
09:23of them something to say at some point um because they wanted to and we wanted to to do that for them
09:29so they all show is about them it's about the dancers it's it's not a dance show it's really
09:34about them and their lives and their work and so when we went to them first to say we come in peace
09:40we're not nobody's going to be pushing anybody off of a building or throwing up in a bathroom
09:44we wanted them to understand that we wanted there weren't window dressing to us they were
09:49real characters we got to know them and their voices so that when we gave them dialogue it was
09:53something that was akin to who they were and and we could create these characters in these moments
09:59for the dancers we had one role that was supposed to be the premier ballerina who was cheyenne we
10:05were not going to find a dancer who could take on a role as complex as cheyenne i mean it just that
10:11just was not going to happen and we didn't want to compromise that so the acting came first so we did
10:16cast lou who was not a dancer but as amy said because dancers basically give off being a dancer by
10:25walking sitting in a certain way they don't do anything like that like normal people they they
10:30they are they they sit differently they stand differently they walk differently so they went
10:35through very very rigorous training but we had a dance doubles who came in who we credit love uh we
10:42we give a big credit to and we have our techniques our behind the scenes techniques that hopefully i know
10:49i know a lot of people didn't know that cheyenne was not a dancer so yeah i mean that was always part
10:55of the plan but you know thais who plays uh michi is a dancer she's a young dancer and most all the
11:02other dancers who were speaking we had and all that and our guy el was you know he was a real dancer so
11:09we had two yeah david alvarez who was bernardo in the west side story that was out a few years ago
11:14and we saw him when he was 14 in billy elliott and now he's which is great he's hard he just turned
11:2130 yeah and he's this he's big tall and handsome now yeah i'm like oh you are adorable when i oh okay
11:28and he found time to be in the army for four years i mean it's just like an incredible he's a really
11:31interesting guy i mean the weird thing is a guy el was not in the show but we loved west side story
11:36and we we were looking for like at least two or three ringers that we could have as actors who
11:45also did their own dancing so we did a zoom with him just to sort of meet him and he's such an
11:50interesting guy because he is that guy he's he was you know he was on broadway he won a tony
11:55then he danced at abt for a while then he joined the army then he backpacked across mexico for two years
12:00and then every time i see a picture of him he's like standing on a camel or he's like digging a hole
12:05somewhere and like he's you know it's like he's swinging from it's i i don't like you know i i
12:09start every text to him is like you know what country are you in where are you he's just that
12:14kind of guy yeah yeah and so we thought well that's kind of a fun character and do you mind if
12:19we steal your entire life for our own evil purposes and i don't know if he knew we were serious until he
12:26saw the script but he's a he's a love amy i was curious you obviously mentioned um that you are a
12:32ballet dancer yourself was was was was was belly dancer that's exactly yeah that's what she was
12:38professionally for many many years you heard it here guys and she's going to give you two minutes
12:44of that at the end of this panel that is the grand finale of this yes i was curious you know having
12:49that background what it was like for you to direct episodes um that combined film and dance
12:55especially the live performances in the show a it just all of my directing i think comes from my
13:00dancing so even when i'm not directing dancers i it's it's it's music to me like i hear a beat and
13:08i hear a rhythm and it's why it's why my steadicam guy goes home very tired every day because i just
13:14don't i i'm like but you can just strap it on and walk around why do you want to be on the dolly for
13:18get up man so i sort of feel that's sort of how i think of things anyhow but you know a lot of it is
13:25is uh just understanding things like dancers are not machines they have a certain amount of takes
13:33in them and then they're going to go down and we have to be ready they cannot be on our clock we have
13:38to be on their clock little things like hey we're going to build sprung floors and everything that's
13:43right none of these dancers are getting injured on our watch i'm not sending anyone back to new york
13:47city ballet broken so it's like there's there's things like that that just basic like you just
13:52the the physicality of it you understand the directing i think it just it it's also you know
13:59when you have these creatures who can do these otherworldly things while you go in close sometimes
14:06you want to see the otherworldly things i mean there's a reason they shoot frottero head to toe
14:11because you're cutting off some of the best stuff when you go in uh too tight i'm not a tight gal
14:18anyhow i don't think anyone older than 12 should have a close-up i think you should just back that
14:22camera up because like as soon as 13 happens like back it up baby let's go let's go but i think that
14:28the fun of dance is to see the joy and the freedom and the beautiful technique and the wonderful and be
14:33ready for the jump because the jump's going to go higher than then the camera's going to be ready for
14:36it and he's going to do that jump three times great the fourth time he's going to start to get tired and
14:40so it's just it's those sorts of things that sort of get stuck in your brain i find it interesting
14:45you talked about being cognizant of like the dancers because i interviewed gideon glick who plays tobias
14:50in the show a couple weeks ago and he said it was interesting for him acting among dancers because he
14:56didn't want to mess up he wanted to be very conscious of how much energy they had and every time he would
15:03mess up they'd have to start over and start over and start over so that was a very interesting thing for
15:08him yeah because he had a lot of scenes where he was choreographing things and they were and some
15:14of these things where they were doing very very difficult things so but you know gideon gideon's
15:18a broadway gideon again gideon we saw gideon on broadway when he was 17 okay all these children
15:23it's getting worse we late we basically groomed to become our actors yes we're the creepy grooming
15:30yes actor people amy do you see that 15 year old let's keep our eye on her the 12 year old and
15:35the 15 year old come with us boys we're going to give you a card don't call it till you're 18
15:41i was curious our lawyers here so maybe you can help us with that
15:47what was the most challenging role to write most challenging character in tv writing we don't really
15:57have the luxury of of like sitting back and going i really don't know what that person's gonna say
16:01so i i don't know if anyone's really challenging we come from the school of 22 episodes and in 22
16:07episodes there's just blind panic every day and you just keep going and you hope some of the words
16:11end up in an order that makes sense we spent a long time developing it before we wrote anything just
16:18thinking about it the characters on the boards traits of how they would interact with each other
16:24we go through outlines and drafts and it's all it's all a process like it's you know nothing's born
16:31in the very beginning it's all just it just just dates just dates just dates so and in tv it continues
16:37you know like you learn about people when you do the first episode and you start changing what you're
16:42doing in the second because you realize this person's good at this this person's bounces off that
16:46person great like on mazel we did not anticipate really midge and susie spending having so much
16:54on-screen time like you know we but we saw from the very beginning oh for some reason alex borstein
17:00we saw it when they read together mesh and you know it's which they shouldn't because they are
17:07not at all the same person there is literally nothing similar about the two of them at all which they
17:14would say constantly on a daily basis but they just really just worked so well together so thank
17:20you guys so much for taking the time to talk about at 12 season one appreciate it of course thank all of
17:27you for coming thank you for coming out
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