‘Girls5Eva’ Is ‘Pitch Perfect’ Meets ‘30 Rock’

We asked Sara Bareilles, Tina Fey, Busy Philipps, Renée Elise Goldsberry, and Paula Pell about their hysterical new comedy.

‘Girls5Eva’ Is ‘Pitch Perfect’ Meets ‘30 Rock’

A Tina Fey project doesn’t just make you laugh. Girls5Eva, created by Meredith Scardino, executive produced by Fey, and starring practically every woman you’ve ever loved, is an overwhelming smorgasbord of comedy. The new half-hour series from NBC’s Peacock follows a one-hit-wonder girl group, Girls5Eva, 20 years later. It’s relentlessly funny, an IV drip of happiness after a year of terror.

There are the kind of laughs that make you snort, like when Renée Elise Goldsberry, the diva of Girls5Eva, confesses, “My water bra is Pellegrino.” Goldsberry, who was a powerhouse on Broadway as the original Angelica in Hamilton, is shockingly good at comedy, on par with 30 Rock’s Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski) and Tahani Al-Jamil (Jameela Jamil) on The Good Place. Every line she delivers feels as though it should go on a Best Of list, a throw pillow, or perhaps a back tattoo. (Goldsberry’s character says it best: “My mouth is a T-shirt gun of wisdom, and my ass is what babies are based off.”)

Then there are the laughs of painful recognition, like when Sara Bareilles’s character proudly announces, “I have been to every Women’s March! That went by my apartment.” As with Goldsberry, it seems way too good to be true that Bareilles, known for her giant musical talent, can anchor a show as if she’s been acting since before “Love Song.” But it’s true—she’s wildly charismatic.

There are gasp-laughs, like when Bareilles’s character’s husband (Daniel Breaker) says, “I thought we had a plan? Two kids and two dogs, and then once they’re in college and dog cemeteries, we do a thousand puzzles and then we die!” There are sight gags (a sign at an influencer church says, “Jesus is proof that you can be hot and nice”). And there are jokes that have a strangely musical cadence (“I’m a spokesmodel for discount whip creams.” “I’m doing the dunk tank in the mom tent”).

Girls5Eva is a brain vacation with a bite—the spangly dresses and high heels are outrageous, like what a circa-2004 Claire’s shopper would wear if she had a professional stylist. The songs are earworms—you will find yourself humming “If a Man Does Cheat We’ll Only Get Real Mad at the Other Girl (It Was Her Fault Only).” And the cast is made up of people you wish were your close friends. Along with Goldsberry and Bareilles, the other band members are Busy Philipps and Paula Pell. (Ashley Park, the fifth Girls5Eva member, plays a part told in flashbacks; her character died in an infinity-pool accident. Petition to raise her from the dead next season!)

We gathered Fey, Scardino, Bareilles, Goldsberry, Philipps, and Pell for some girl talk. That is, a roundtable discussion about body image, aging, and girlhood, as well as a strategy session on how to become better friends with Michelle Obama.

Glamour: The girls of Girls5Eva sing, among other things, about being “side pieces 4 life.” What is the creepiest message you received from pop culture as a little girl?

Sara Bareilles: God, how long do you have? For me, it was about body image. It’s just the worst thing we can do—to young women in particular, but to everybody—the messaging that we have to look a certain way to have worth. [Laughs.] And by the way, do you like my makeup?

Paula Pell: The message I always received growing up as a person of size is that the fat girl was the punchline. On sitcoms it would be like, “Oh, my cousin really thinks you’re cute and wants to go out with you!” “Oh great; you’re going to fix me up with your cute cousin, great!” *Ding dong* and…it’s the fat girl. As a fat girl, I was growing up looking at that, thinking, “Oh, okay, it’s a torture, it’s a joke, that you would fix someone up with a fat girl.”

Tina Fey: I’m from the ’70s, so there was a lot of, like, “Go away, little girl! You’re under age, but it’s your fault that I’m into you.” But nothing’s as bad as “Blurred Lines.”

Meredith Scardino: That’s exactly what I was going to say! There were so many songs about a guy coming back from college or war and being like, “The neighbor girl has gone through her puberty times and now I’m noticing her as a woman.” But she’s like...13.

Renée Elise Goldsberry: Mine is, I think, the fact that girl or woman became synonymous with the word ho. I know we’ve embraced bitch; we can take these things back and we make them empowering. I think it’s a little harder to do that with ho.

Busy Philipps: Every single message that we got in the ’80s and ’90s as young women was inappropriate, truly. It’s why I gravitated towards Ani DiFranco and Tori Amos.

What was your favorite zinger from the show?

Paula: My personal one from my character was, “Stop trying to fart in our tights, Larry!”

Busy: I like when my character says, “We’re taking a temporary hianus.” And then Dawn [played by Bareilles] tries to correct her, and she says, “Don’t gaslight me!”

Tina: Wickie [played by Goldsberry] admitting that she gets paid to shoot geese at the airport.

Renée: When my character says, “Nu-uh, Google.” I love that.

Meredith: Some of the lyrics are really fun. What pops into my head is the song 
“Dream Girlfriends,” and the line, “Our dads are dead! / So you never have to meet them!”

Sara: When Busy’s character, Summer, says, “Ashley’s a bench now, Dawn.” Because we go to her memorial bench. I laughed and laughed and laughed.

Who’s a famous person you don’t know but feel you could be friends with?

Meredith and Tina [in unison]: Olivia Colman!

Tina: [Olivia Colman voice] Hard pass, not interested.

Renée: Oh, my gosh, all of them. If you’re a celebrity out there, I will be your friend. I am here for you, waiting.

Sara: For me, I think it’s Michelle Obama. I’ve encountered her a few times, and she’s so incredibly warm. I just think she’s one of the most special and powerful voices we have in our culture. Michelle, I would love to be your girlfriend!

Renée: Well, let me tell you, [laughs] the challenge with Michelle for me is that it was like being up against the real thing! It was hard to feel worthy of saying any word that came to mind. It would be great to have another shot. I hope I get another shot!

Girls5Eva was famous in their 20s, and we meet the characters again about two decades later. What’s the thing you miss the least about being in your 20s?

Paula: Not knowing how to say no. Being too approval-seeking, worrying about hurting everyone’s feelings. Not speaking my truth, not living my truth.

Busy: For me it’s similar—I just lacked confidence. I didn’t believe that what made me unique would ultimately be the thing that people would respond to. I was so concerned with the ideas of what I wasn’t that I held myself back in a lot of ways, and I wasn’t able to really break through to being truly who I am.

Tina: I don’t miss those low-rise jeans one bit. I don’t miss chunky highlights. It’s a rough aesthetic.

Meredith: I don’t miss the very thin eyebrows. And everyone wanted to be blonde!

Tina: It was peak aggressive-eating-disorder culture.

Sara: For me, my 20s were riddled with a self-conscious ticker tape, a noisy brain that kept me from actually experiencing the world. In my 20s, I got to do incredible things—my first record came out, I toured the world—and I spent so much time concerned with, “Am I doing it right? Do I look okay? Am I ugly?” If I could go back I would be so much gentler and more engaged with the wonder that was in front of me. All of the energy we waste—it’s pretty toxic.

Renée: It’s the wondering, for me. The wondering if I would never achieve anything. I just had no idea how it was going to go. I have a lot more of those questions answered now. I was plagued with, “Do I need to switch course and do something else?” I didn’t want to waste my life fighting for something that wasn’t meant for me. It was a valid question to ask because there are a lot of other things I could have done. But it was a lot of weight to carry all the time—”Am I wasting my time trying?”

What do you like most about being the age you are?

Paula: I find it easier to live now. In any kind of work, and especially in show business, there are so many filters of who you’re trying to please and who you’re afraid won’t like you. You’re always walking on eggshells, trying to manipulate everything to make it perfect. You learn that the best stuff you get is through being your authentic self.

Busy: That is the joy of getting a little bit older, and working at it. The truth is, some people don’t ever let go of that pretense, that trying to be something they think others want them to be. If you’re able to do that as you age, it feels like freedom. Sometimes younger generations intrinsically have it—I look at my kids, and I’m floored sometimes by their ability to just exist as who they are right now, outside of what they might feel anyone else expects them to be. It’s really incredible.

Renée: For me, so many questions have been answered. I wanted so much, and throughout my 20s it became increasingly clear to me how pie-in-the-sky my dreams were. I didn’t know if I was going to have to choose between family and marriage, or giving it all up for a career. I just didn’t know. I think what I feel now is just a huge relief because a lot of the loss, the pain, the sacrifices, so much of that is behind me. Maybe my greatest successes are behind me too! But it puts me at ease to have information about how I manage loss and how I manage success. It makes me feel like whatever comes in the future, I will be able to survive it.

Sara: What I love about this age is the capacity to hold—joy, pain, and everything in between. I have a much deeper sense of faith that whatever happens, I will be okay. You go through all these crazy things and you think, “I won’t be okay!” And you realize, “I am okay! No matter what.”

This story originally appeared on: Glamour - Author:Jenny Singer