The feel-good series is now streaming.
In Netflix’s ‘Firefly Lane,’ Katherine Heigl Has Finally Found Her Perfect Role
Netflix’s latest feel-good series Firefly Lane has arrived at the perfect time. Now streaming, the dramedy starring Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke is a salve for those still reminiscing about the good ole days when hanging out with your best friend didn’t come with a health risk.
The 10-episode series is based on author Kristin Hannah’s New York Times best-seller of the same name, about two inseparable best friends (Heigl’s Tully Hart and Chalke’s Kate Mularkey) and their relationship from the time they meet in the ’70s to the “present day” (early 2000s). Think This Is Us—i.e., time jumps between decades, cliff-hanger episodes, and storylines about difficult subject matters like sexual assault and drug abuse—with a light-hearted edge. The “Martha Stewart meets Nancy Meyers” real estate is enjoyable to look at, as are resident heartthrobs Johnny Ryan (Ben Lawson) and Max Brody (Jon-Michael Ecker).
The show sits squarely in a genre that Netflix has had tremendous success with already (see Sweet Magnolias, Virgin River), and the streaming service is counting on the star power of Heigl and Chalke. The two TV vets had known of each other for years but didn't formally meet until actor Dulé Hill (Suits, The West Wing) played matchmaker. “He’s a mutual friend who we both love,” Chalke says, “so he asked if I could help give her the lay of the land in Vancouver, which is my hometown, since she was going to be filming this new Netflix series there. Katie and I immediately hit it off. I love her.”
A month later Chalke received the script for Firefly Lane. “I immediately fell in love with the story of these two women and their incredible friendship that spans decades. I couldn’t believe the opportunity to be part of it.”
Heigl—who rose to fame as Izzy Stevens on Grey’s Anatomy—was equally taken by the script, which was developed for TV by Maggie Friedman (Dawson’s Creek, Once & Again, Witches of East End). “This role and script was the culmination I had been hoping for, for years,” she tells Glamour. “I’ve had the great privilege of playing wonderful characters in my career, but getting to be a part of Firefly Lane…I felt it in my soul. There was no saying no to something like this.”
AdvertisementWhile a show featuring two female leads is no longer a novelty, it’s still rare for one to go as deep into the lives of these women as Firefly Lane does. (For the sake of spoilers, I’ll refrain from saying more.) Says Chalke, “Getting to watch these two characters find their voice and go from pleasing other people to realizing what they want—it was the unicorn job that just has all the things. That is so rare.”
But Chalke and Heigl will be the first to tell you their roles didn’t come without a healthy amount of fear. Here, they open up about taking necessary risks, the burden of being people pleasers, and more.
Glamour: Katherine, you were given the choice of playing Tully or Kate, so what drew you to Tully?
Katherine Heigl: It was a tough one. I spent a good week going back and forth, because I just felt like I understood Kate better. She felt more “me," like I could psychologically dive into that character easier and maybe get there faster. But I had been talking to my mother, who is my producing partner, and my husband about wanting a real challenge in my next project. I was just coming off of Suits where I got to play this badass, strong, independent lawyer, and I wanted another challenge like that—a character that isn’t me. So I decided to just get brave and try playing Tully.
I’m glad you did.
Heigl: Thank you. There was nothing more fun than slipping into Tully’s skin. She’s so fierce and unapologetically ambitious in a way that, quite frankly, has been crapped upon in society. Women aren’t really encouraged to be that way. So I guess through my own brainwashing, I thought, She’s too much. I didn’t know how to embrace that. As I continued to pour through the book and the script and look at it more from Tully’s perspective, my heart grew for this character. My initial instinct was, I want to be the likable one; I want people to like me. I wasn’t sure I could pull Tully off in a way that you’d have sympathy for, that you would understand her, that you would still love her. Thankfully I had great material to draw upon, but it was scary.
Sarah Chalke: I can’t imagine anyone else playing that part. Katie as a person is so charismatic and draws people in, and that is something you can’t really fake. It’s so Tully. She’s larger than life. But also has that vulnerability and pain you see.
I think many of us wish we had Tully’s chutzpah and ability to say what's on our mind more often.
Heigl: She’s just not afraid. As we’re talking about it, I’m just now realizing Tully is essentially my mother. She gets a lot of shit for speaking her mind, but she does not care. I have watched this woman my whole life, and she will literally look at me and be like, “I do not get you.” I once told her that I go to bed and pray that tomorrow I’m a better version of myself than I was today, and my mom was like, “I have never said that once about myself!” [Laughs.] I think I was probably drawing a little bit upon my mother’s self-esteem and self-worth to play Tully. Maybe it is our generation. Maybe we were just raised to be such people pleasers and to be quiet.
It had to have been liberating and refreshing to play these characters in their 40s and authentically see the ups and downs of dating, career, motherhood, et cetera.
Chalke: It’s such a gift to get those meaty storylines. It was always challenging and fun and a little bit scary. There’s scenes where’d I’d be snuggling on Katie’s shoulder and sobbing about my character’s divorce. And then in the next, I’m giving birth or really letting go and dancing on tables and cranking up the music. Getting to do that range on one show is so rare. There wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t go, “I’m so grateful for this job and this part.”
Heigl: It was such a relief that this role came along and the opportunity to tell this particular story came along. I’m super invested in Bridgerton, but I realized many of these characters are 20 years younger than me! I feel like I’m 20 years old, but their particular storyline is never going to happen for me because I’m 40. It already happened, and now I’m 13 years into marriage. Tell that story, Bridgerton! [Laughs.] It was just such a relief to think, That may not be my story anymore or be as relevant to my life anymore, but there’s still a hell of a lot to talk about and a hell of a lot to say. There are other women out there like us who want to have their stories be told and see themselves represented. Thank God I don’t have to take 20 years off until I can play the dowager.
AdvertisementBut speaking of playing a woman in her 20s, you both do that as well in Firefly Lane. How did they reverse-age you? Because I very much believed you as 20-somethings in the ’80s, and then as 40-somethings in 2003.
Chalke: Well, that’s just what we look like and then they aged us in the other direction in the year 2003. [Laughs.]
Heigl: They just made us look older for the millennium. [Laughs.]
Chalke: There was tape happening [to pull our faces back]. I had no idea we needed tape! But that didn’t end up working so well, so we dropped that. They did do some CGI, like some Benjamin Button situation. It was such a gift to play these characters in the ’80s because I’m obsessed with that time. I even have a dress-up drawer of clothes from that decade, and it’s like an acid-wash explosion. To get to climb into that time period with the great music and all those bottles of hairspray was way too much fun.
Heigl: It was so much fun, but thank God for CGI. When they were trying out tape, it’s like the old Hollywood thing where it pulls your neck back and you can barely speak and the tape pulls your eyes back. You don’t look younger, you look weird—like a bad face lift. We were like, “That’s not going to work.” It was incredibly distracting. Because can I, at 42 years of age, pull off looking 20? No. Thankfully they did CGI, and it’s really humbling, I’ll say that.
Chalke: We tested out the makeup as our characters enter their 40s to figure out how we make it look different. For the first time I think in my life, I was wearing pretty much no makeup on camera. I had never done that before, so it was kind of scary. You feel like you don’t have your armor on. I said to the makeup team, “Are you sure I don’t need a little more?” I don’t really wear that much makeup in my daily life at all, but here on the show I was wearing less than what I’d wear to Whole Foods. It was really none. We eventually added more once Kate gets back into the dating scene as a 40-something woman, but the idea of her wearing none was one way to differentiate it from the ’80s.
AdvertisementAnd Katherine, you also dyed your hair to play Tully.
Heigl: I love changing my hair. As my hairstylist said, my hair is like an accessory to me. It’s like a hat. To me, Tully was always a brunette.
Finally, talk to me about the Kate or Tully in your life. Who is that person for you?
Chalke: I have a real life Tully who I met in kindergarten. We packed up her truck and moved to L.A. together when we were 24. She’s the one that introduced me to [showrunner and EP] Maggie Friedman a few decades ago. I didn’t know anyone in L.A. at the time, so to have that person that would drop anything for you in a minute is everything. When I read the book and the script, Tully and Kate’s relationship reminded me so much of me and Jen, though their dramas and problems are really big and huge. Jen’s and mine biggest problem was over cereal. [Laughs.]
Heigl: I can be my absolute truest self with my friends and know they have my back. But the person I speak to literally every day—sometimes twice a day—and probably consider my soulmate is my mother. Maybe that makes me sound ridiculous, but it just works. There’s something about the connection between us, and it has grown as I’ve become an adult. She still bosses me around and drives me completely insane at times, but I can’t call anybody else my soulmate. It’s Nancy and Katie, and it’s always been Nancy and Katie.
Firefly Lane is now streaming on Netflix.
Jessica Radloff is the Glamour West Coast editor. You can follow her on Instagram at @jessicaradloff14.
This story originally appeared on: Glamour - Author:Jessica Radloff
