Netflix has stepped into the ring for it’s latest series GLOW, which is a fictional take on a popular 80s women’s wrestling circuit. With such a big female ensemble on this show, it’s hard not to take notice in what this show represents, which is female empowerment and searching for your calling. Comedian Jackie Tohn plays Melanie Rosen, a party girl who goes by the name of Melrose when she takes part in this role of a wrestler. The actress spoke with me about what she had to bring to the table in order to play this wild character and what made her a fan of the original GLOW.
How did you get cast as Melrose in GLOW?
I heard about the show and they called me in for it. I was auditioning actually for a bunch of different parts because in the initial pilot, the characters other than the two leads, they’re not as fleshed out in the pilot but I think they were seeing actors for different parts and going like, “Where can that girl go and where can that girl go?” As I kept going in more and more, I think they found that I was right for Melrose.
Were you familiar with the original show from the 80s?
Yes, I knew about GLOW the TV show but I wasn’t super aware of it, I just knew about it. When I got the audition, I went down to YouTube rabbit hole watching so much GLOW, loving it, and becoming more obsessed with the project and the whole deal.
What can you tell us about Melrose on GLOW?
I think that something the girls have in common is that, I think something we all feel is that they just want to be seen, they’re all just misfits from different walks of life who, for one reason or another, want to be seen, want to try this thing, and want to kind of go on this adventure even though none of them really know what it is. I think truthfully, Melrose is a party girl and she likes to do drugs and likes to drink but I think she’s like a lot of people overcompensating for insecurities by trying to fill voids in her life with fun and partying. She is fun as hell, but I think there’s a little bit of overcompensation going on in there.
How was the character developed? Did you have any input into how she would be or was that more from the writers?
I think it was more on the writers’ part but I think to the writers’ credit, they have the character, they find the person who is going to play the character, and they definitely played to that person’s strength. I mean they know that I am a comic and they know that I am a brassy broad. I think they made the things I am work for Melrose so definitely wrote her, created her, all of that but I think they took all of that into consideration who I am, which obviously I really appreciated it as an actor being able to play a character that you understand and you have similar characteristics.
Are you saying that you relate to your character on the show?
I do relate to my character but I think I am this person who is loud with a big personality who is out there and I can be brassy and I can have a dirty mouth, and all these things about me that are also Melrose. There are things about her that I would never do, like fake a miscarriage with ketchup and I’m not a drug doer or a cigarette smoker. There are a lot of things that we don’t have in common but there are also a lot of things we do.
Did you have to do any training or boot camp sessions when you were prepping for the show?
All the girls did our own stunts. There were stuntwomen there. We were trained by Shauna Duggins, one of the great lady stunt coordinators, and Chavo Guerrero, who is a wrestling legend. They trained us for four weeks before the show started, so we were all able to do all the things and all the moves that we had to do as wrestlers. The only time stunt people came in on the show was when a girl had to do something four or five times and we we’re not built to jump off the ropes and land on our backs ten times in a row. So we would do it as many times as we could and then someone would come in and sort of takeover and go like, “Alright, we got the shot now let’s just have one of the stunt women finish it out.”
What was it like getting to train with some of these professional wrestlers? I know a couple of them had cameos on the show as well.
The other wrestlers we haven’t trained with. They were there, they did their shots and did their thing but we didn’t train with them. We only trained with Chavo, but it was incredible. He was so kind and generous the entire time and there was never a sense of, “I am a man pro-wrestler and you ladies are like, good luck.” It was just kindness and patience and it gave us such strength and power to now know that we are women who are actors but who are also wrestlers who can also do these moves. Very empowering.
There is such female empowerment on this show. What was it like being part of this ensemble cast? You also have a powerhouse talent like Jenji Kohan who worked on Orange is the New Black working on GLOW. What was working with her like?
Working with the girls was incredible. Working under Carly and Liz, our showrunners, I mean just from the bottom up and the top down it’s just women everywhere and it’s empowering and incredible to be a part of a thing that you feel can possibly make a difference for women. Jenji’s a superhero; she has now become synonymous with empowering female television. When you have a job and you get to work with her, it is an amazing thing for an actor.
How did you get into acting because I know you’ve done some stand-up as well, so how did that come about?
I’ve been acting since I was 10. I did a lot of stuff when I was a little kid, commercials; I was on The Nanny, and a bunch of different stuff like that. In my 20s, I have been acting for so long, funny enough, that I’ve been making music as well. I wanted to just try something else and so I tried out for American Idol and that was super exciting. When I was 30, I was like, “You know, I think I love making music and it is absolutely a passion of mine, but I think performing, acting, comedy, and being an actor has always been the dream and the music, as much as I love it, was a less turn in the middle and then I came back to acting.
Was there a time where you had doubts of ever making it in showbiz and how did you come out of it?
I’ve been acting for so long, I was doing Idol when I was 27-28 and I’ve been acting legitimately for 18-19 years by then. By the time I did Idol, I was like, you know what, acting is rough it’s hard, and it’s all hard but I want to live a life in the arts and I want to earn a living by being an artist. It’s going to be hard to earn a living as an actor who can’t get acting jobs but if you’re a musician, maybe if I’m a musician and a comic, I could go on the road and make money and on the side if I can get commercials and voice-over work. This is the journey that all the people in the entertainment industry go through because you sit and you look at yourself and go, “What are the things I need to do to get money with my skill set?” I didn’t go to college, so it’s not like I could fall back on TV/DVR repair, I didn’t have other skills. I’m looking at my skills going, “What do I do?” That was when I tried out for Idol and I mean, talk about a crapshoot. Who get’s on American Idol? I mean 118,000 tried out for the season I tried out. I’m was good at what I was doing but I wasn’t better than 118,000 people that didn’t make the show. It’s where luck and preparation meets opportunity. That was when I put a left turn on music for probably four or five years and then started doing stand-up again and I wanted to be a stand-up and an actor as opposed to a touring musician.
What else are you working on at the moment? I know you also have a film coming out soon.
I did a movie called A Futile and Stupid Gesture directed by David Wain of Wet Hot American Summer fame and I play one of my comedy heroes, Gilda Radner. That is coming out in early 2018 on Netflix. We don’t have a release quite yet and we’re hoping season two of GLOW will keep me busy for the rest of the year.
The show just got picked up for another season. Do you have an idea of where you would like to take Melrose next?
I would love to see Melrose go from being a girl who’s just in music videos to a person who’s trying to make her own music videos; that could be really fun. She’s like early days MTV trying to make her own music videos. Maybe Melrose and Rhonda could be like a lady duo of musicians because me and Kate Nash are musicians. That would be really fun.
There are so many shows now that are displaying female empowerment and identity, which Netflix does a great job in. Why should people tune into programs like GLOW?
I think people should check out shows like GLOW because it speaks to them. Honestly, GLOW for me is, yes it’s about female empowerment, but it’s also a show for a person who has ever struggled with anything. Ruth wants to be an actress, she’s broke, she’s making bad decisions, and she is confused about where she is in her life. That’s all of us at some point. I mean, whether you’re older and you’ve got your shit together or you’re young and you’re still trying to get your shit together, I think that these characters are so relatable and so incredibly written that truly anybody can relate. There is a character on GLOW for everyone and there’s a character on GLOW in everyone. There’s a little bit of those crazy ladies in everyone. It would be impossible not to relate on some level.