A trio of stars of the upcoming Prime Video series Étoile previewed their show at Deadline’s Contenders Television. Created by Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino, Étoile is set in the world of struggling ballet companies — one in New York, one in Paris — who swap stars to help improve attendance.
Luke Kirby plays one of the company’s executive directors, Jack, while Lou de Laâge and writer Gideon Glick play dancers. All three appeared to talk about the series, which premieres April 24.
With funding for the arts on the chopping block in real life, Kirby said he worries about the arts regardless of whether he’s playing a ballet company director.
“I worry about it most certainly, then I kind of just keep coming back to just trying to encourage young people to get into space together,” Kirby said. “I worry about it … especially performing arts, anything that brings strangers into a room together. I hope that that appetite is within us in a way where we’ll always find our way back to it.”
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Glick, who was offered the role only after he’d been working on scripts with the Palladinos, said he hopes Étoile makes ballet more accessible to mainstream audiences.
“This is a show about people who love to create and who love art and will sacrifice anything to do it,” Glick said. “I hope that maybe inspires other people that they can do the same.”
Étoile is French actor de Laâge’s first English-speaking role. She not only learned English, but also Sherman-Palladino’s rapid-fire brand of English.
“It was just so challenging experience because I didn’t speak English — I wasn’t a ballet dancer so I had everything to learn,” de Laâge said. “Okay, speak very fast with Amy’s words, a very strong character, very passionate character. First I thought, ‘Okay, she’s crazy. Why me? I’m not good enough in everything.’ I was lucky because I learned many things.”
Kirby and Glick learned about the dance world for their roles, too. Glick shadowed choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, and remembered a mentor earlier in his career.
“I did a musical called Spring Awakening when I was 17 years old,” Glick said. “I worked with a man named Bill T. Jones, a legend in the modern dance world. He is very exacting. He’s very blunt. He’s eccentric. I feel like I took a lot from him. Christopher Wheelden is a good buddy of mine. He let me shadow him while he was putting up a new ballet.”
Kirby said the role of Jack was familiar to him. He drew inspiration from previous colleagues he worked with in theater.
“It’s a performing arts company,” Kirby said. “I’ve been exposed to a lot of the ins and outs of that world and understand just how impossible it is to make anything happen in that world. There are certainly people I’ve culled from, but I’m not ready to name names.”
Étoile will showcase extraordinary ballet dancing too, sometimes a ballet between the physical dancers and the characters speaking.
“There’s a lot of text but there’s also weaving cameras in and out of dancers,” Glick said. “There’s only so many times they can do these shots because of their bodies.”
De Laâge took ballet as a child at the behest of her mother. Now she regrets giving it up at 18.
“When I had this part, I thought why did I stop?” She said. “Because I had to re-learn ballet and it’s really hard. I don’t know if you have, tried but it’s really hard.”
Check back Monday for the panel video.
The post Luke Kirby, Gideon Glick And Lou De Laâge Hope Their Ballet Series ‘Étoile’ Reinforces That The Arts Are Worth Saving – Contenders TV appeared first on Deadline.
