We Spent a Day on the Set of Good Girls Revolt and Got All the Behind-the-Scenes Details
Credit: courtesy Amazon Studios
Here at InStyle, we get to do some pretty cool things from time to time. It's not a bad gig when your job description includes interviewing celebrities or attending red carpet premieres. One such instance of said job perks was when we were lucky enough to get to spend a day on the set of Amazon's newest series, Good Girls Revolt, which premieres today, Oct. 28. We've been looking forward to this show for quite some time, so we couldn't have been more excited to get a behind-the-scenes look while it was filming.
Based on the novel by Lynn Povich, Good Girls Revolt follows a group of young women who simply asked to be treated fairly in the workplace--and started a revolution. Taking place in the late '60s and early '70s, the series revolves around a group of talented, educated women employed at a top publication who are tired of working in dead-end positions simply because they're women. With no opportunities for promotions, the women took matters into their own hands, bringing a class action lawsuit against the company and changing history in the process.
We arrived to the set, located in a warehouse in Santa Clarita, Calif., and were taken inside where we got to hang out right outside the room they were shooting in. Sitting with the hair and makeup crew, we got to watch each take on monitors and heard every "cut!" and "action!"--and everything in between. It was a one-of-a-kind experience to get to see how a real television show comes together before we see it on TV. And the best part? Between takes, we were able to sit down with three of the leading ladies--Anna Camp, Genevieve Angelson, and Erin Darke--to discuss their roles and everything about the show. Read below to see what each of them had to say.
Credit: courtesy Amazon Studios
Can you tell us a little bit about your character?
Genevieve Angelson: I play Patti Robinson; she's the central character on the show. She is the wild-spirit, wild-hearted, free-spirited counter culture representative. But she's also a 24-year-old girl who isn't decidedly anything yet. She doesn't know what she believes in yet. She kind of likes breaking the rules; she's super smart and she's incredible at her job. She doesn't mind being a little bit naughty and dressing a little bit more inappropriately than other people at the office because she can get away with it.
Anna Camp: I play Jane Hollander. She's the lead researcher, and she's the least liberated of all the woman, and she's dying to discover more things about herself though, so as the season progresses we'll see her slowly react to the revolution that is the '70s. She's very wealthy, she uses her dad's money. I think she's always very put-together. It's more '60s than it is '70s, obviously. She's more conservative. But she's got mad style; it's very, very chic.
Erin Darke: I play Cindy Reston; I think she's a woman who had a very sort of traditional upbringing and got married to her college sweetheart. Then he was like, "You can work for a year while I finish law school and we'll start a family." And she started working and is sort of starting to discover that maybe being a stay-at-home wife is not really what she wants. I think she's very sweet, but more than that, I think she's a little bit awkward. She's still learning herself a little bit, which causes her to be almost painfully awkward sometimes, as soon as she's uncomfortable in a situation, which I find so endearing.
Credit: courtesy Amazon Studios
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What is the wardrobe like?
Genevieve Angelson: gets this stuff called deadstock which was basically stuff that was made in 1970 and sealed and never worn. So the clothes that we're wearing are not vintage clothes that have been passed around, they're vintage clothes that you would have bought at the store in 1970 but I'm wearing it for the first time in 2016. And it is unbelievable, the stuff that she gets.
Erin Darke: At the beginning of the season, we had these sort of huge hours-long fittings just to sort of build a closet for our characters, so it's all very cohesive, and I think we've done an amazing job in making us so distinctive in what we wear. Like when you look at one of Cindy's outfits, you're like, "Yeah, no other character would wear that, only Cindy would wear that."
How did you prepare for your role on the show?
Anna Camp: I was a huge, huge, huge fan of Mad Men. It was my favorite show and it will probably be my favorite show of all time. I obviously read the book, Good Girls Revolt by Lynn Povich. I was a fan of my mother's clothing growing up. I would wear my mom's dresses--she was a beauty pageant contestant--and I would wear her clothes and stuff and walk around and everything.
Erin Darke: I tried to do a lot of research about the late '60s and the early '70s because even though I thought I knew a lot about that period, once I started doing research I realized that I just sort of know the broad strokes of it. Like the intricacies of just how much was happening and how much was changing at that time was really fascinating.
Credit: courtesy Amazon Studios
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What was it like to work on such a female-driven show?
Anna Camp: I feel like the show is incredibly relevant even though it's set in the '70s. I feel like it's a great time to be showcasing women's stories and that women are smart and powerful and creative and great communicators and our show definitely does that.
Erin Darke: What's been shocking to me working on the show is how relevant some of these issues still are. We've come far enough that a woman is running for president but we still don't get paid the same amount as men, and it's like this is 46 years ago and some of these conversations are the same conversations, which I just find horrifying and fascinating at the same time.
Genevieve Angelson: I think about the real women and how incredibly dynamic and smart and funny and brilliant and sexy they are and what they must have been like when they were in their early twenties and figuring all this stuff out, and I try to honor them.
All episodes are available today for streaming on Amazon Prime.
