11 Illuminating Facts About Netflix’s GLOW

GLOW is a brilliant show, and the way we know it’s brilliant is that it highlights a perfect tension between comedy and drama amid dozens of different personalities all trying to seriously find themselves in an activity no one takes seriously. Also, it had a drug-dispensing, '80s-style talking robot without devolving into pure silliness.

With Alison Brie and Betty Gilpin leading the ensemble, the show about an amateur women’s wrestling squad vying for a large enough paycheck to make all the training and ointment worth it is an absolute gem (as its six Emmy nominations prove). Here are 11 facts about Netflix’s comedic cage match.

1. PRODUCERS DIDN’T WANT ALISON BRIE IN THE CAST.

Like her character, Ruth, Alison Brie got rejected a lot before getting the role, enduring a grueling casting process for producers and a casting director who wanted an unknown for the part. “I cried in my car after every audition,” she said. “I would sit in my care like Ruth and sob. And we were both listening to the same Ultimate ‘80s mix while [we] audition[ed], so Flock of Seagulls was playing.”

2. THE CAST’S TRAINER IS THE NEPHEW OF THE GUY WHO TRAINED THE REAL-LIFE GORGEOUS LADIES OF WRESTLING.

Professional wrestler Armando “Mando” Guerrero took on the task of teaching the motley crew of women who made up the real-life Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling back in 1985. He was reportedly an intense coach, putting at least one woman in a headlock until she cried on the first day of training. All these years later, it’s his nephew, Chavo Guerrero Jr., who has the privilege of training the fictional wrestlers of GLOW, as well as choreographing their fights and acting in two episodes.

3. KIA STEVENS IS A WRESTLER IN REAL LIFE.

The cast is full of actresses who all work with trainers to catch up on all the chiropractor-defying moves they have to do, but Kia Stevens (who plays Tammé “The Welfare Queen” Dawson) has been making those moves for decades. Wrestling under the name Awesome Kong and Amazing Kong, she’s a five-time Women’s Champion. Stevens has also wrestled in the WWE as Kharma.

4. BRIE SEES RUTH AS “SEXLESS."

One of the catalysts of the show’s plot is Ruth having an affair with her best friend Debbie’s (Betty Gilpin) husband (Rich Sommer), but the rest of the show is hardly romantic for Ruth, which is probably why Brie views the character as “sexless.”

“I don’t think she thinks of herself as being very sexual,” Brie told The A.V. Club. “It’s a major difference between my character and Betty Gilpin’s character, who has been a successful actress and has a bombshell body, and every time you see her she’s in full hair and makeup ... I don’t think that Ruth is not having sex with guys every once in a while. I’m sure she does. I just don’t think it’s a main part of her life goals.” Even the adultery that kicks off the show is less about sex than it is about someone who feels invisible and rejected being seen and accepted by someone else.

5. WORKING WITH WOMEN BOSSES MADE BETTY GILPIN REFLECT ON HER ENTIRE CAREER.

GLOW is rare for having so many women in the cast and behind the camera, something that the actors have noted affected the shooting environment as a “protected, feminist bubble.” For Gilpin, it also raised some questions about herself.

“Being on a set with female bosses [co-showrunners Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch], the level of comfort and bravery I felt really made me reflect back on my whole career," Gilpin told The Hollywood Reporter. "I’d always known about things that men did that made me shut down creatively, but I was surprised to reflect on things that I did to myself as a result of being in a male-dominated environment ... I felt a level of fear and anxiety that if I didn’t behave like the quiet Barbie I was playing, they wouldn’t let me play a quiet Barbie again."

6. IT ALSO MADE GILPIN FIGHT HARDER AGAINST THE MALE GAZE.

Since Gilpin doesn’t have a stunt double, and she’s doing the wrestling moves herself, GLOW has forced her to reexamine how she views her body while acting. Specifically, she’s gotten a lot less self-conscious and unshackled her movements from fear of the male gaze.

“The way we think about our bodies is completely changing,” Gilpin told The Huffington Post. Where she used to take workout classes designed to avoid bulking up, now she can lift some heavy weights. “I think that it’s our job to band together and say, ‘Okay, what are ways the male gaze has seeped into your brain and is affecting the way you treat yourself? Let’s work together to eliminate that.’”

7. THE SHOW CHANGED ONE IMPORTANT ELEMENT TO HOME IN ON THE CAMARADERIE.

They fight in the ring, they fight outside of it, they lift each other up, they undercut each other. It’s all part of the show’s drama and grounded realness. It’s a family, and to develop that sensibility, GLOW borrowed from the conditions the real-life women trained under. That includes staying two-to-a-room at a shabby motel, but the show dropped the forced separation of the "good" wrestlers from the heels (the villains) during travel that the real GLOW athletes experience. They also didn’t make the characters call each other by their wrestling names outside the ring.

8. BROOKE HOGAN MADE A CAMEO.

Hulk Hogan's daughter made a brief appearance as a theater owner who rents her space to the ragtag production. She’s not nearly the only person from the wrestling world to make a cameo appearance, either.

9. WORKING ON GLOW IS LIKE BOARDING SCHOOL.

Too often, shows have one spot in the cast for a woman. GLOW initially had 15. According to Gilpin, “I went to boarding school, and being on GLOW reminds me of that. When your call is 5:45 a.m., and there’s a group of 14 women all talking at once, it can be a little much, but it’s also the greatest gift. It’s constant happiness and support all day, every day. I love it.”

10. THE MATCH BASH RECALLS SEEING IN SEASON 2 IS REAL.

There’s a moment in season 2 where Bash (Chris Lowell) described a personal memory of watching a match between Stan Hansen and Bruno Sammartino where the former busted the latter’s neck. The match is real. So is the injury.

At Madison Square Garden, on April 26, 1976, Sammartino was defending his world title against Hansen when Hansen failed to properly execute a body slam and cracked one of Sammartino’s vertebrae. They were back in the ring two months later in a rematch.

11. THE SERIES WILL BE COMING BACK FOR A THIRD SEASON.

On August 20, 2018—more than two months after GLOW's second season dropped on Netflix—entertainment outlets began reporting that the series had officially been renewed by Netflix for a third season. The decision may not have been an easy one to make, however; as Variety reported: "Industry sources claim that the series is not among Netflix’s most watched, but is valued by the streaming service for its creative execution and status as an awards contender."