Following the screening of the pilot episode of Netflix’s new series GLOW at the Austin Television Festival, co-stars Alison Brie and Betty Gilpin discussed how things have or have not improved for actresses since the 1980s when the wrestling comedy drama is set.
“It has not changed that much,” Brie responded. “The audition process has not changed that much.”
Brie and Gilpin each had horror stories about the things they were forced to do to get a part on a TV show or movie. Gilpin was asked to take her hair down in a room full of men. Meanwhile, Brie discussed the time she auditioned for HBO’s Entourage.
“Early in my career, I auditioned for three lines on an episode of Entourage that I had to go on in a bikini,” she said. “Or like shorts and the tiniest shorts. And they were like, ‘Okay, can you take your top off now?’”
Jennifer Euston, who also worked on Girls, Orange Is the New Black, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and was also part of the panel, later tweeted, “Makes me sick there are producers who abuse their power & if there was a Casting Director present, they did nothing? Inexcusable.”
Needless to say, Brie didn’t get the part of, like, Party Girl #4 on Entourage.
