3 days ago
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“Étoile” co-creator Amy Sherman-Palladino says her Prime Video ballet series taps into the struggle for art, declaring that art is “everything. Art is expression. Art is joy, and it’s part of the human experience.”
When it comes to “Étoile,” which immerses viewers in the ballet world, “the relatability of this is not just about art. It’s about just a dream and disappointment in life and wanting to be something that maybe you’re never going to be or maybe you are going to get there. And that sort of universal struggle of trying to figure out where you fit into the grand scheme of anything,” Sherman-Palladino said at a Q&A moderated by Vanity Fair’s Rebecca Ford.
She continued that everyone shares the same questions: “Do I matter? Does what I think matter? Does what I care about matter? It does matter. It matters so much. And I think at the core of it, that’s what this show is about.”
In the way that “Étoile” addresses those questions, “We just happen to have some really hot looking dancers with fabulous asses dancing their storm up on the screen,” she added.
For Sherman-Palladino, ballet has long been a part of her life. “I trained as a dancer all the way up to becoming a writer,” she said. With ballet, “if you love it, it never quite leaves you.”
Sherman-Palladino and co-creator Daniel Palladino previously worked on a show about ballet called “Bunheads.” “That was a small taste of what it’s like to write and incorporate dance into drama and use the physicality to move story along. And 10 years later, I am still angry that it doesn’t exist. So vengeance will be mine,” Sherman-Palladino said.
Palladino talked about the challenge of casting for “Étoile,” which features a mix of professional actors and dancers: “We tend to write parts for which there is one actor out there.”
For cast member David Alvarez, the character that was written for him shares similarities to his actual life. Playing that is “both very easy and also not easy at all.”
“You want to strike a balance between bringing something unique to the character, but also being able to connect with it and figuring out how you fit into the bigger picture,” Alvarez said.
Luke Kirby, who has worked with this writing team on “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” touched on the duo’s writing style.
“What’s very clear about their writing is that they write characters who have a need and an urgency that really revs the motor up,” he said.
His own character seemed like someone that “if they stopped for too long to think about anything, the world might swallow them whole, and that’s exciting to play.”
Taïs Vinolo, a real ballet dancer in the cast, compared the differences between acting and dancing: “As a ballerina, I always express myself with my body, and [acting] for me was to use my voice.”
Yanic Truesdale, who was part of the Sherman-Palladino and Palladino’s “Gilmore Girls,” provided insight into what it was like to reteam with the creators.
“At the first table read, I said, ‘Get ready… the first note you’re going to get and get over and over again is “faster,”‘” Truesdale said.
In terms of Sherman-Palladino and Palladino’s evolution over the years, Truesdale said, “They’re the same, vibrant, creative, crazy, caring, passionate couple, but we were much younger, and I think we are much wiser now.”
English (US) ·