Betty Gilpin Bio, Age, Isn’t it Romantic, Father, Husband, Nursie Jackie,

Showrunners Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch spoke about how the meat of the episode was in the conversation after, between Ruth and Debbie. Ruth confides in her friend and expects sympathy, but is confronted with a differing perspective about what women have to do to hold on to a Hollywood career in the 1980s. What conversations did you have with the writers, and with each other, about what you wanted to portray?

Brie: The conversation between Ruth and Debbie is the most important part of that episode. To not only show a woman put in a very precarious position but the reaction of another woman — a contemporary in her industry who has had a very different experience. I know it was important to Betty that Debbie not come off as too much of a villain during that conversation. But she plays it so beautifully. Essentially, what we’re showing is that it was sort of learned behavior. I think a lot of women really felt that to work in this industry and be successful, you had to play the game. You had to put yourself out there with men in a certain capacity to continue to work. What you see in that scene is one actress’ resentment at another actress not following the rules that she had been made to feel like she had to follow her whole career. And in that way, Ruth is really naive when it comes to the entertainment industry. Having had zero success as an actress, she really hasn’t found herself in difficult positions very much of the time.

Betty Gilpin: At first, I had a visceral negative reaction. I was so disappointed in her. But then I realized, her reaction isn’t about Ruth at all. Debbie is thinking only about her own experience and feeling shame and regret and vulnerability. I think both Debbie and Ruth went into the scene thinking it was going to go differently. There’s a way of looking at it where it’s super black and white. Where Debbie is the cool, “How could you?” ice queen and Ruth is the victim, but they’re both victims. They both have the map of their own experiences on their faces. And it’s even more complicated because they’re both feeling extreme shame and loneliness in that moment. All they want is their best friend who knows them to be able to open their arms and to just fall into the other person. And of course, because of their history, they can’t do that. It breaks my heart.

Ruth escaped the scenario, running out of the bungalow and rejecting the boss. Were you surprised by that reaction? 

Brie: That made sense to me because it’s more Ruth’s naivete that she wouldn’t even realize the possible repercussions of that action. It adds to what makes Ruth a really complicated character — where she chooses to take the moral high ground and where she fails to do that, which of course Debbie references by saying that she slept with Debbie’s husband last season but now is drawing the line with sex in a way that’s going to hurt everyone. It was more a sign of Ruth’s internal struggle and just her newness to this whole industry.

Betty Gilpin: Debbie wouldn’t have done the same thing Ruth did. She wouldn’t have walked out. I don’t know that she would have had sex with the guy, but she would have teased him into thinking there’s a world in which it could have happened so that she didn’t upset the boss. Something that is unique to our time now is people becoming more vocal and supported when they speak out, whereas in 1985 that wasn’t the case.

Both Ruth and Debbie also fight for a seat at the table this season, with Ruth directing and Debbie producing. How do you compare their quests for power?

Brie: Debbie is certainly much more upfront about asking for what she wants and demanding it, and I think Ruth sort of thrives when she’s beaten down and challenged — which is good because she finds herself in that position often in the context of this show. Ruth is almost more collaborative by nature, but she is at a disadvantage in terms of her naivete. She’s often misinterpreting signals from Sam [Sylvia, played by Marc Maron]. In the first episode she takes the reins to direct the cold open of the show – she doesn’t really have Sam’s permission, but in her mind they’re collaborators! Now they’re working together and rolling with it full force, even though she hasn’t been given that authority. Ruth tends to get in her own way; whereas with Debbie, we see the real male obstacles that are keeping her down.

Betty Gilpin: It’s really interesting to see in what ways Ruth and Debbie are strong and in what ways they second-guess themselves. There’s a big difference between self-confidence and self-worth. While Debbie may have pretty good self-confidence when it comes to putting on a bold lip and sauntering across a room, in terms of self-worth, she has a long way to go. In her soap opera days, I don’t think she ever dreamed of the possibility of becoming a producer. Ruth has always known what she’s worth and has always dreamed to the stars. I think she’s thought about directing for a long time, and Debbie is just forming these dreams. I certainly relate to that. As an actor, I kept my dreams very low, achievable and realistic because I love it so much and I didn’t want the heartbreak of not achieving something. And what’s happening on GLOW is so beyond my expectations. I’m in this feminist apocalypse and it’s happening at the right time for me, because I’m watching women around me who have dreamed this big for their whole lives and I’m learning how to do that. I think self-worth can be contagious if you let it.

They are bucking gender rules that existed in the ’80s, some still today. How do you view the sexual politics they encounter? 

Brie: I don’t think Ruth really even thinks about it. Last season, GLOW opened with Ruth reading the man’s part in the scene because it’s a better part. Ruth is not getting on a soapbox about women’s rights; it just doesn’t occur to her that she shouldn’t be able to do this stuff. Whereas Debbie has worked much longer as an actress and she knows how to show up to a meeting and get what she wants. The battle is harder than even she anticipates. Debbie’s able to get the title, but she’s not able to get the respect right away. Ruth is just diving in and doing the work and not thinking at all about those titles or those things, and then gets hurt so much more when it doesn’t work out for her.

Betty Gilpin: As an actress, Debbie is used to there being one girl part: A story about a bunch of men and then there’s the Bond girl or the mother. Debbie, like me, is shocked and inspired by being in a work environment where there are 14 women around her. Suddenly, there are many spaces and different ways you can be useful and your 7-year-old creativity is just as valuable as the way your butt looks in tights. She’s figuring out, “Where do I fit in? If I’m allowed in that room, at that table — what do I want that to look like?” Producing, for her, is a really good fit. In the 1950s, there are so many women who could have been CEOs. Debbie has been a producer in her own home, by herself. She just has to give herself permission to have a voice. Men’s brains are going to take forever to change, you may as well work on your own brain first.

What was it like to film the scene where Debbie, after snorting cocaine, snaps Ruth’s ankle during their match — and did she do it on purpose?

Brie: It’s always such a blast to be in the ring with Betty. In this case, again, there was a lot of sensitivity paid in terms of — how much do we want the audience to think that Debbie really did this on purpose, or was she just so coked out of her mind and unstable that she took the move too far? And I think it’s a little bit of both. Betty is such an incredible actress and it’s one of our favorite things, to be in the ring together and to get to layer in so much stuff. We’re doing the moves, working off of our chemistry in the ring and the chemistry between our wrestling characters. Then at the same time, playing real heavy, human emotions underneath that are bubbling to the surface. That’s a dream day of shooting for me.

Betty Gilpin: It was long because we had two different directors — it was the end of one episode and the beginning of the next. Every wrestling sequence takes so long; usually we start the day pretty ambitious with a set of shot lists and sometimes I’ll do a move and say, “OK, we can do four takes of that, not 16.” But I was worried about that scene because playing Liberty Bell not on cocaine is already like she’s on cocaine. (Laughs.) The way to wrestle safely is to do it slow — you are more of a stumbling, drunken bear than a coked-up deer. I thought, “Maybe she just drops the character totally.” That Debbie is so angry, it’s Debbie fighting Ruth. And that’s what I tried to play with in that sequence. The rage is easily accessible, it’s within all of us. The past two years, the breaking news is: Every woman, in every stage of time, in every place has a bottomless well of rage that can be harnessed into art or business or whatever they choose. I definitely was thinking about Roy Moore during the cocaine match. I was like, “Roy Moore!”

I don’t think Debbie meant to do it. She was feeling genuine feelings of: I want Ruth to feel pain. But I don’t think she meant to or thought she was going to break her ankle. There was a sequence they cut after it happened, where all the girls come down from Sam’s office and each one glares at me with a horrible look like, “How could you?” And after we filmed it, I was like, “She had sex with my husband! It was an accident!”