The creators of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel take on the world of ballet in Étoile
When an actor does a scene for Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, the note they most often receive is, “Faster.” The rapid-fire, tongue-twisting dialogue that Sherman-Palladino and her husband Daniel Palladino have become known for has famously challenged their stars, but on their new series Étoile, about the world of professional ballet, the duo has discovered a group of people tailor-made for their projects: the French. “Where have these people been my whole life? They speak so fast!” exclaims Sherman-Palladino. “There’s a whole country of ’em that I didn’t know about.”
A former dancer, Sherman-Palladino’s love for ballet has found its way to television before, on the short-lived comedy Bunheads, starring Sutton Foster. But Étoile — the French word for star, the word used to refer to a company’s principal dancers — is a different beast altogether.
“We say it’s not a dance show, it’s a show about dancers,” says Sherman-Palladino. “It’s their lives, their dreams and hopes and what they do within those mysterious four walls all day long. It really became more of a workplace comedy, but our version of a workplace comedy would be set someplace like a ballet company because it is artistic, beautiful, crazy, weird and it smells iffy.”
Our point of entry into this world is Jack McMillan, played by Luke Kirby, executive director at the Metropolitan Ballet Theater. In an effort to revive interest in the art, Jack makes a deal with the head of Ballet National in France, Genevieve Lavigne (played by Charlotte Gainsbourg), to swap some of their talent. “These people are very powerful. They’re also very beleaguered people now, because audiences really got hurt during the pandemic and are only now slowly starting to come back,” explains Daniel Palladino. “A lot of the conflict is up in that suite. It’s a very difficult world. They’re always answering to a board, or in Genevieve’s case, answering to the government. And we were really interested in them as characters.”
It was also an opportunity for the Palladinos to work with Kirby full-time, instead of on a recurring basis. The actor, who won an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor for his portrayal of Lenny Bruce in Mrs. Maisel, never hesitates to take a call from these two. “There’s a great role in there. There’s great writing. There’s a huge drive to be a noise in the world, which I think is a good thing,” he says. “Some of us are too shy to admit wanting to participate in that, but they’re not.”
Kirby is not the only Sherman-Palladino fan favourite to join this world. Yanic Truesdale who spent seven seasons on Gilmore Girls as Michel Gerard, the sarcastic French concierge, joins the series as Genevieve’s second in command, Raphael. “Because I [previously] played a French character and my boss was a woman, my challenge was really to create a different dynamic with my new boss and create a different energy between two characters,” he says. Yet, when it came to the rhythm of the dialogue, the Canadian actor slipped right into old patterns. “I know what’s in Amy’s head, pace-wise,” he says. “I am so used to it, that it doesn’t feel like it’s faster than normal.”
For Lou de Laâge, Taïs Vinolo and David Alvarez, who join the series as the companies’ top dancers, the challenges were two-fold. De Laâge, neither a professional dancer nor an English speaker, admits learning the quick dialogue was an adjustment, but equally, so was relearning ballet at the age of 33. “I’d done a dance when I was a kid and a teenager, but I stopped because it wasn’t my first passion,” she says. “I hated myself when I had this part because, ‘Why did I stop?’ It’s really hard [to learn] because it’s not natural for the body.” For Alvarez and Vinolo, who still dance professionally, adapting their craft to television was also a challenge. “It hurts a lot more because it’s a lot of stopping,” says Alvarez. “You warm up, you feel like you’re ready to dance, and then they set up for a shot and it’s like an hour, and then you’re cold, and then you got to get up and do a double tour and five pirouettes. It’s very hard on the body.” Adds Vinolo, “Also, in a performance, you get to do it once and if you fail, you fail. But on TV you can do it over and over until it gets the closest to perfection. So we have to be smart about it, to not hurt ourselves.”
What those who have worked with the Palladinos know, is that when you reach that level of perfection — whether it is the dialogue or the dance steps — everything feels a little bit sweeter. “The challenge is the execution and the joy comes from completing the execution,” says Kirby. “It heightens the world and lifts everyone just a little bit off the ground, including the crew. It’s very nice to be in a space where everyone is listening to what is happening and listening for all of the nuance that we need to get things right. It makes the meal afterward taste that much better.”
Étoile, streaming Thursday, May 8 on Prime Video