‘Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies’ Casting Directors Wanted Stockard Channing’s Rizzo to Be the ‘Essence’ of New Cast
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“Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies” might not spotlight characters from the original 1978 film like Didi Conn’s Frenchy or Stockard Channing’s Rizzo, but it does set the stage for their impending reign on Rydell High.
Though tampering with any reiteration of the cultural cornerstone that is “Grease” has proven unsuccessful in the past, showrunner Annabel Oakes was clearly up for the challenge. So, how does one begin to cast the characters for a prequel television series based on the beloved movie? Casting directors Leigh Ann Smith and Conrad Woolfe of Indigo Casting accredit showrunner Oakes’ clear vision.
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“[Oakes] had lived in that world with these characters for so long,” Smith tells Variety. Adds Woolfe, “We didn’t necessarily feel pressure [casting these characters] because Oakes had done such an incredible job of expanding the universe in her imagination before we even came to the table to do the casting.”
“Pink Ladies” stars Marisa Davila as Jane, the geeky creator of the group; Ari Notartomaso as Cynthia, who really just wants to join the T-Birds; Cheyenne Isabel Wells as Olivia, whose image has been tarnished after hooking up with a teacher last year; and Tricia Fukuhara as Nancy, a boy-hating fashionista.
For many of the actors part of this series, “Pink Ladies” is their breakout project. “Our directive was to discover people,” Woolfe says. “We have such a ‘no stone left unturned’ approach that we really wanted to get a sense of what was out there that hadn’t been tapped into already,” Smith adds.
For Woolfe, molding a diverse cast “was everything,” as it was for Oakes. The showrunner did intensive research on the landscape of what a real 1950s high school looked like before even conceptualizing “Pink Ladies.” She went as far to interview people who were in school during the time period and even went “back through yearbooks from Southern California in the 1950s to really get a sense of what demographics were like,” says Woolfe, despite criticism that the cast of “Pink Ladies” strays too far from its original counterpart.
Smith adds that like many period pieces being created in a different time, “they are never going to be 100% historically accurate, and sometimes that leads to better storytelling. Look at ‘Hamilton.'”
The casting team also put a strong emphasis on recruiting actors that exhibited what they like to call “Big Grease Energy,” something inspired by Channing’s original character.
“We made sure that they had watched ‘Grease’ so that they understood that it’s [a] heightened reality,” Woolfe says. “Our North Star within the ‘Grease’ universe was Rizzo. Stockard Channing is just so amazing, and that was the essence we wanted to pull for all of these characters, for all four of these Pink Ladies especially.”
While hints of what’s to come in 1958 with Channing’s Rizzo aren’t explicitly spelled out (only teased) in the prequel series, it’s clear that all four Pink Ladies carry her dominant, commanding vibe.
“It really came down to navigating who felt like they could be from that time period, but also who felt exciting and fresh,” Smith says. “[They] had [to have] legitimate triple threat talent that is necessary to live up to an Olivia Newton-John or a Stockard Channing.”
When making those tough decisions, both Smith and Woolfe reveal that there were moments when they knew that most of the Pink Ladies would be perfect for their respective roles.
Woolfe remembers being wildly impressed after seeing a video of Notartomaso singing online. “I sent it to Leigh Ann and I said, ‘I think this might be Cynthia.'” While the character of Cynthia gives off what Woolfe describes as “butch energy,” he and Smith knew right away they wanted to “find someone who was openly queer, openly LGBTQ” to fill the role.
As a non-binary actor, Notartomaso didn’t initially think the project was right for them. “There was something in the character description at that time that [Notartomaso] didn’t necessarily feel right about…we told their agent, you know, ‘please trust us,'” Woolfe says. Eventually, Notartomaso came around.
However, the journey of casting Wells as Olivia was more drawn out. “Initially, when we were casting for both Jane and Olivia, it felt unclear which one Cheyenne [Wells] fell more in line with,” Smith says.
“[Olivia] was a role that our team was having a hard time nailing down and I was like, ‘We should just have Cheyenne [Wells] play for Olivia too,'” Smith says. “As soon as we sent her [tape] to the team, they were almost certain that that was their Olivia.”
Choosing who was going to take on the role of Jane, the founder and leader of the Pink Ladies, was one of the most important decisions that Smith and Woolfe had to navigate. Jane is “such a specific character [that] has to carry this entire show,” Smith says.
However, they were pretty certain that they had struck gold with Davila in the early stages of auditions. “We got Marisa [Davila]’s first tape and it was really clear that [she] totally, immediately understood the energy [of Jane],” Smith says. While Davila still had to go through the full four month audition process, Woolfe says that, “oddly enough, [Davila] was the first actor on the first tape that we ever sent to our creative team.”
While no set of actors may ever live up to those in the iconic original “Grease,” Woolfe says “Pink Ladies” isn’t really trying to. “‘Grease’ is such a huge cultural touchstone that we know that [any critique is] coming from [a] place [of] good, bad or indifferent,” he says.
“Give it a chance,” Smith says to anyone who may prefer to stick with the “Grease” they know and love. Adds Woolfe, “These kids are so incredibly talented, and we’re just so proud of them that I think that they’ll forget all of their issues with [a new reiteration] after the first episode.”
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