“Hip-hop dancing wasn’t a problem at all,” jokes Paula Pell about the work on the pop musical “Gilrs5eva”. For our recent online chat, she says, “It was actually hell on earth. It was super fun and good for me to move my box. But it was really like pulling an old car out of a garage you’ve been renovating for a long time. Get rid of the mice inside and say “let’s move that old rusty thing”. Watch the exclusive video interview above.

Along with the vocals, she says, “I love to harmonize, so harmonizing I have always felt very comfortable with these girls. It was just when I had a solo that I was like ‘I don’t know if I can do this anymore.’ “

“Girls5eva” is a new comedy series airing on Peacock created by Meredith scardino and produced by Tina Fey. Pell co-stars alongside Sara Bareilles, Renee Elise Goldsberry and Busy Philipps as a successful girl group from the 90s (called “Girls5eva”). In the series, the girls come together to launch a career comeback. It combines crisp dialogue with absurd musical numbers and fun ’90s flashbacks.

Pell explains, “When they put this band together, I didn’t know Sara, I knew Renee, and I barely knew Busy. We all sort of knew one of us. We just fell into it. It was so good that we couldn’t help but be constantly nauseatingly excited about how much we loved each other. And there was the story of us being ripped off so that we didn’t even own our own songs. When we first sang our own first song, it was very emotional. We all choked a bit.

The actress plays Gloria in the series, a divorced dentist who is the hard worker of the group. She confesses, “I don’t know anything about dental products and I hate going to the dentist, but I also divorced my first wife, even though I remarried. We don’t know if Gloria will remarry, or even if she remarries her ex. It would be fun because she’s my wife now (Janine Brito) who plays my ex on the show.

Pell won an Emmy Award with Fey in 2002 for writing on “Saturday Night Live.” She adds: “At ‘SNL’, I always said that I write happy losers. I love losers who didn’t know they were losers so they really do go. I think we are happy losers in “Girls5eva”. I am so excited to receive these solid gold scripts. We are absurd, but there are times. I love the absurdity, but I never liked when the absurdity was without vulnerability. If it’s not vulnerable and if it’s just sneaky and absurd, I’ve never liked this kind of comedy myself.

TO PREDICT 2021 Emmy nominees until July 13

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