‘Girls5eva’s’ Paula Pell: Gloria is ‘really thinking of herself for the 1st time’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
“Girls5eva” is about the titular fictional ’90s girl group that reunites for a second act after their old song gets sampled by a rapper. It’s fitting then for the show itself to get its own second act. After two seasons on Peacock, the comedy was acquired by Netflix for Season 3, which premiered on March 14 on the streamer, along with the first two seasons. “The more we talk about it and the more we watch the third season assembled — the show has always been about second chances. So much of the theme of this whole show is second chances and for us to have the second chance at Netflix, we just laughed so hard,” Paula Pell tells Gold Derby (watch the exclusive video interview above).
That theme also extends to Gloria’s (Pell) arc in the third season. After opting to be off again with her ex-wife Caroline (Janine Brito, Pell’s real-life wife), Gloria wants to make up for lost time in the romance department while Girls5eva is on tour. She was in the closet during the group’s heyday — cue a hilarious flashback to the “worst sex tape ever” between her and Lance Bass — and this is her second chance to date and sleep around to her heart’s content. As she says, just call her Ho Spice (but don’t write it down because it looks like hospice).
“We always tease that [creator] Meredith Scardino has a weekly meeting with our therapists because I think she knows a lot more than we think she knows because it always feels so insightful,” Pell explains. “I’m 60 years in real life and I can really look at Gloria and feel that panic of, like, we got this chance that is so outta the blue, we can’t give it up, we can’t live it down. And I think romantically, it’s pretty courageous of her this season to say, ‘I got my ex-wife back, but now I wanna make sure it’s right, so I’m gonna go out and sow my wild oats and I know when I come back home, I can say, ‘You are the one that makes me happy.’ Like she’s really thinking of herself for the first time, I think, because she’s a caretaker, just like I am. I love a theme of second chances, of hope, because every time in my career where I thought it’s over or my car is slowly riding into the ditch, I’ll just have something happen that’s so miraculous and so wonder, so I believe in that joy.”
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Pell — who started out acting before spending 18 years as a writer on “Saturday Night Live,” for which she won an Emmy in 2002 — had an additional inside track to Season 3 as Brito joined the writing staff this season. She didn’t get a ton of scoop as the writers’ room met in person — but she didn’t want much anyway. “She’d tell me little things that made me excited. She’d be like, ‘Oh, my God, there’s a move you’re doing in this that’s so funny. And I love that. That’s all I need,” Pell says. “I didn’t want to know everything. I love to get a script in a table read and really discover it and read the whole story of it, so I was glad she wasn’t constantly filling me in.”
Brito was the one who came up with Gloria’s list of 178 types of women to sleep with (she checks off Pre-‘Friends’ Courteney Cox in the premiere). Like many things on the comedy, the list was a great sight gag — for viewers and Pell herself. “They didn’t even tell me those or show me that prop until I was doing the scene. And so I sat down and looked down and I see, like, Cigar Mommy and Short Peg Bundy. And I’m like, ‘I can’t look at these when I’m doing the scene,'” she shares. “In the scene, I just look down and check off a few, but I really do wanna get a copy of it because I would love to frame that. That would be a very funny thing to have in my memorabilia.”
Season 3 ends on a cliffhanger for both the group and Gloria. The girls are on the verge of accepting an offer to contribute a song to the female Garfield movie. “I would love [for them] to have a little blip of success,” Pell says of her hopes in a potential fourth season. “And then of course have something terrible happen. Just really screw it up.” And after sleeping with all 178 types of women, Gloria crunches the numbers and discovers her soul mate is, in fact, Caroline, who has unfortunately moved on with Dr. Bev, a critter zoologist. But in the theme of second chances, could Gloria and Caroline give it another go?
“I was a little afraid at the end of the season that it would seem too sad for Gloria, but I feel like now, she’s either going to meet someone else or she’s really going to come to Caroline with a different energy, which makes me laugh. It’s not the boombox in ‘Say Anything,’ but it’s something ridiculous. She tries to lure her back in in some ridiculous way. I love the idea of that,” Pell says. “I’ve been divorced. I’m remarried to Janine. I still have a great friendship with my ex-wife, but divorce is sad. A lot of times in life, when you have an ex of any kind, whether it’s divorce or not, there’s something great about the ‘I’m grown, I’m a different person, you’re a different person. What if this still worked?’ But sometimes it doesn’t work at all now. I think it would be the exploring of that. I just picture her trying to showboat a little bit and really get in there because I’ve been so earnest with Caroline and now I feel like I just might get a mohawk or something.”
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