[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: Citysong]

Kousha Navidar: You're listening to All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar in for Alison Stewart. In Netflix's hit comedy series, Sara Bareilles, Busy Philipps, Paula Pell, and Renée Elise Goldsberry star as members of a 2000s girl group looking to make a comeback in the music industry after one hit. It's titled Girls5eva. Let's listen to part of the trailer.

[music]

Girl5eva: Can't kill our vibe, wooh. We are Girls5eva.

[cheering]

Speaker 3: Why Girls5eva?

Speaker 4: Because we're going to be famous 5eva, young 5eva.

[cheering]

Speaker 5: I remember you. You had that song on the soundtrack of Blue Crush.

Speaker 6: TV.

Speaker 5: [singing] Tiny buts forever.

Speaker 7: [laughs] [unintelligible 00:00:50].

[music]

Speaker 8: Oh God. Girls5eva booked a gig.

Speaker 3: The Tonight Show.

Speaker 9: I just did mandatory sensitivity training, so let's do a side hug where none of our parts touch.

Speaker 10: Hey [unintelligible 00:01:02]

Kousha Navidar: The show follows Bareilles' character Dawn, who gave up dreams of fame to raise her family and manage her brother's restaurant. Philipps' character, Summer, is the Christian influencer in a sham of a marriage, Pell as Gloria, who gave up music to become a dentist, and Goldsberry's character, Wickie, is the Beyonce of the group, yet whose solo career didn't quite work out. Girls5eva is in its third season now on Netflix, and the show's creator, Meredith Scardino, joins us now to discuss. Meredith, welcome to All Of It.

Meredith Scardino: Oh my gosh, that was such a great sum up of the characters. Congratulations. That was lovely.

Kousha Navidar: Well, shout out to-- [crosstalk]

Meredith Scardino: It's great to be here.

Kousha Navidar: It's wonderful to have you here, and thank you so much for that shout out to our producer, L. Malik Anderson, who helped write that. Before it was on Netflix, Girls5eva premiered on Peacock back in 2021. What inspired this concept of a show about a fictional Y2K girl group?

Meredith Scardino: Let's see. I really wanted to write a show starring-- the main cast was all hilarious women. That was a little bit of what I set out to do. I liked the idea of writing women in my age group. I'm a lady in my 40s in New York City, so I wanted to see that reflected on screen. Then, I came up with this added element of the one-hit wonder. I just loved the concept of putting-- you have these grounded real stories about what it's like to be a lady in your 40s, but then you also have it put up against the hyperbolic world of the pop music world and how it churned out talent. It still does, but it used to, especially when it was assembling these girl and boy groups back in the Y2K era, and I thought, "Oh my gosh, now I can also look back at what life was like back then, what passed by unnoticed that you only in retrospect say, 'Oh, maybe that wasn't the best,' and how do you find your own agency and what do you want to say now if you're going to try and do it again?"

Kousha Navidar: Were there specific parts of that Y2K turn-of-the-century music industry or entertainment industry in general that you really were excited to poke fun at when you were first making this concept?

Meredith Scardino: There are so much. Looking back, you look back at old interviews with young artists, and I think we've all, as a society, grown a lot of empathy for these artists that we put through the wringer and threw on the tabloid covers and all that. You see these young girls who have an album out, and the reporter asks them about their virginity and they don't even get to talk about their album. Then you see a guy with a new album come out and he gets to talk about his music, what it's like to play guitar, and you're like, "Okay, this is different." There was plenty, the song content, to poke fun at the fashion is always really fun, and some of that stuff is also very popular now. The lines are blurred. There's a lot to unpack and have fun with.

Kousha Navidar: What's great about the show, I think at least, is that Grammy Award singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles and Tony Award-winning Hamilton actress Renée Elise Goldsberry are starring as two leaders of the group. Bareilles' character, Dawn, is the brains of the operation, and Goldsberry's character, Wickie, is acting more as the voice. It was just interesting to me to see what it was like to work with artists known for their vocal talent in a show about singers. How did you play with this in the show?

Meredith Scardino: Well, what was interesting is when I first came up with the concept, I thought to myself like, "Okay, if we just get actors, funny actors who can't sing, that'll be okay because Studio Magic will make them sound like they can sing." Some of those girl and boy groups back then were mostly picking out people based on ab count and things like that. That felt like that could work. Then, once we got Sara Bareilles and we have the voice, she has the most beautiful voice I've ever heard in my life, you start to open it up and say like, what can we do here? Same with Renée, just vocal powerhouse. They're both so funny too. I think it's so exciting to see how funny those two are. Then, we also have such a wonderful-- our music team is led by Jeff Richmond who really makes all of these absurd songs that we come up with into earworms. Then, we also have Sara has written us a few of the most gorgeous songs that really ground the show and make you root for the reunited version of the group. Each season she's written us something just so beautiful, when I get the demo, I cry.

Kousha Navidar: [chuckles] Well, let's listen to a song from the show. This is Girls5eva's hit single and the show's theme song, Famous 5eva. Here it is.

[laughter]

[MUSIC - Girls5eva: Famous 5eva]

Hey, hey, hey, it's us, Girls5eva

(Girls5eva)

And we're going to be famous for fun-hundred years

'Cause it's like five more than a hundred

All we know is we're going to make this count

Going to be famous 5eva

'Cause 4eva's too short

Going to be famous 3gether

'Cause that's one more than 2gether

People staring at us, thinking we are badass

Watching as we wave goodbye, our stomachs are the flattest

Riding in our Lexus, life rarely affects us

Drinking Veuve Clicquot champagne and texting all our exes

Playing with our brand-new flip phones

Kousha Navidar: I want to keep listening to this, but we have to get back to the interview at a certain point. Listeners, if you're just joining us, we're talking to Meredith Scardino who's the creator of Netflix's Girls5eva, which is out now. I'm listening to the song, Meredith, and in the show, Girls5eva is often described as a one-hit wonder. Why are these women so invested in reuniting?

Meredith Scardino: Well, I think, first of all, they were thrown together by a Lou Pearlman-esque monster manager man who probably had them audition in a hotel room in New Jersey, and they had a quick ascent and they were promised the world. You get a little taste of that and you never think it's going to be anything but just getting better and better and better. Their song really talks about that. They're going to be famous 5eva because forever is too short. Then, when it all just disappears, it's like, what happened and how do you put your life together?

When we catch up with them, they're all at that stage in life that I think is very relatable in your 40s where, I don't know about you, but whenever I start to look a little too forward to the coffee that I have in the morning, it's like, "Oh, my coffee. Yes," and then I'm like, "Oh, no, I should be challenging myself more. I should be pushing myself more." I'm getting too comfortable and just into the mundane and maybe stepping back. I think all of these ladies are feeling that in life. This group really activates them all and has them go for it.

They also have a lot of unrecorded things that they want to-- they were really tossed out and they weren't listened to. Dawn, back in the day, Sara Bareilles' character definitely wanted to be a songwriter, but was pushed aside when she, "Hey, I have an idea for a song," and her manager would say, "Ah, leave it to the experts. We got some guys in Sweden that do that." To see them come back alive through the group. They do get sampled by a young rapper, and that's the impetus to the whole reunion, but the truth is they all need it. They all need it and they need each other. Together, they really reawaken. It's an underdog story that I think it's filled with jokes. It's really funny, but it's also very relatable to anyone who feels like an underdog.

Kousha Navidar: You know what else is relatable? Your comment about not looking too much forward to your coffee or else you have to check yourself? I'm not a coffee drinker, but for me, it's overnight oats. I think it's basically the same thing.

Meredith Scardino: Oh, like, "All these oats, they're so perfectly chilled." [laughs]

Kousha Navidar: That peanut butter, [chuckles] organic. Prior to season three, Girls5eva was a Peacock original. What's something new or different you wanted to try during this transition to Netflix for the latest season?

Meredith Scardino: It was a very exciting move to get picked up by Netflix, and they were great partners. Sometimes I see a couple articles that say something like, "Oh, they really had fun making fun of Netflix's shows," because we have jokes about The Witcher and The Crown and stuff. In some ways, they said, "Oh, was that because you moved to Netflix?" I said, "No, they're just such a major part of culture that of course it's going to seep in when you're writing about pop culture." They gave us the idea to do an Easter Egg of the Streamer. We had a Streamer joke in Episode 6 and we had a different name for it. They said, "The Netflix in Black Mirror is called Streamberry. Do you guys want to name it Streamberry?" I'm like, "Yes, sure. That would be fun." They're very playful, and they've just been great partners.

Kousha Navidar: Meredith, do we need to have a conversation about how now Girls5eva is in the Black Mirror universe?

[laughter]

Meredith Scardino: What's so funny is that we did that before I ever saw the Joan Is Awful episode. It was before it came out. Then, I saw it and I was like, "Oh, this is a new meaning."

[laughter]

Kousha Navidar: I want to listen to another clip because in the most current season, we find Girls5eva on a tour stop in Fort Worth, where they've performed successfully for several weeks. Let's listen to a clip from there. In this scene, Wickie is trying to convince the rest of the group to pack up so they leave Fort Worth and head to another stop on their tour. Let's listen to it.

Wikie: Let's go. Tour mode. Vroom, vroom, beep, beep.

Speaker 11: I don't know if we need to rush out of Fort Worth so soon. We could sell out for weeks if we wanted.

Wikie: But all crowds want to hear is Tap Into Your Fort Worth, and we're staying in a Marriott Divorced Dad Suitelets. That one's luggage is a garbage bag.

Gloria: Yeah, well, you're staying here for free, thanks to my credit card reward point.

Wickie: The vending machine is filled with wrapped kids' birthday presents.

Speaker 12: Oh, thank you for reminding me. Is today the 28th?

Wickie: It's the 5th.

Kousha Navidar: Why Fort Worth?

Meredith Scardino: Well, okay, so we did do a little research. In season two, they're trying to get popular again. They're trying to game the system a little bit, and they figure out the largest city in America that didn't have a hit song about it. They came up with Fort Worth, Texas, which is a big metropolitan area, but it doesn't have a hit like Empire State of Mind, or whatever it is. They write their love letter pop song to Fort Worth without ever having stepped foot there before. Then, at the end of season two, spoiler alert, if you haven't seen it, they do get some traction and some love, and there's some heat in Fort Worth. That's where they decide they're going to go on this big tour and do it themselves. That's obviously their first stop. They're almost one-hit wonders again in Fort Worth. They fall in love with that warm bath of that attention down there-

Kousha Navidar: That's wonderful.

Meredith Scardino: -and it becomes hard to leave.

Kousha Navidar: Backwards planning, I guess it's just Y2K all over again.

[laughter]

Kousha Navidar: It's interesting you bring up that point about going from season to season. Character development in comedy is really interesting. What's your approach to character development with series, and how do we get to see these characters in a different light than we've seen them in the first two seasons?

Meredith Scardino: They're all evolving. They're all being pulled out of their shell and helping each other pull each other out of their shell, calling each other on things. Wickie, obviously, always just feels like she should be Beyonce, she should be Taylor Swift, she should be the number one thing in the world. Some of her vision for that has kept her from actually connecting with other people and having empathy for others. She has learned to grow that a bit with the group and become more of a fully realized person. That's her Achilles' heel. I'm not saying that's Beyonce's or Taylor Swift. They're perfect. That was her thing that holds her back, in addition to the music business being very hard. Summer loved that moment of fame and really clung to it. She's really clinging to her relationship that doesn't work. You see her try to find her way on her own and what does it mean to stand on her own two Barbie feet and be a person on her own without Kev, her boy band ex-husband, becomes her ex-husband. Spoiler alert.

Paula Pell's character, Gloria shut herself off and threw herself into work into something practical. I think that this group really opened her up to be the loud, queer, wonderful pop star that she really is meant to be and fall into risk more and not just be like, "Okay. Teeth are forever. I will just put my focus into teeth because being a dentist is predictable." Dawn is really somebody who I think has anxiety. She's scared to put herself out there and had no idea how after the group fell apart. She retreated to Queens and works in her brother's one-star Italian restaurant, and just forgot about herself. Has a nice husband, has a nice son, and just let herself disappear. This group really has helped her find her voice as a songwriter. Just is a more active participant in life, stand up to people. She's scared of confrontation. I have some things in common with Dawn.

[laughter]

Kousha Navidar: It sounds like there's threads that everybody can relate to in each of these characters.

Meredith Scardino: Parts of all of us and the writers and the actors that are in all these characters, it's really fun to put it in a big soup.

Kousha Navidar: Right. Listeners, if you're just joining us, I want to say again, we're talking to Meredith Scardino, who's the creator of Netflix's Girls5eva, which is out now. Meredith, I just want to point out we got an Insta DM during this conversation that says, "That Girls5eva song is surprisingly catchy." I want to bring up the Tap Into Your Fort Worth song while we still have a little bit of time. Let's listen to a little bit of that song right now. Here it is.

Meredith Scardino: Great.

[MUSIC - Girls5eva: Tap Into Your Fort Worth]

Got my best boots on, smile on my face

Can't believe we're from this place

Thirteenth biggest in the States

Can a town be your soulmate?

East Exchange Avenue

Steers in my rear-view

Going to hit what USA Today calls

The second-best zoo

Because Cowtown is a wow-town

With a walkable downtown

It's time to tap into your Fort Worth

Kousha Navidar: Since this is a show about music artists, there are actual songs. What skill sets do you need to write a good song for television, and how do you incorporate humor into lyrics?

Meredith Scardino: Well, that's a great question because I find that it's a different a muscle than writing jokes for dialogue. I think that in some ways, I want to say you want to pull the joke back a little bit because sometimes jokey joke joke things just stick out too much in a song and you don't feel the overall mood of the song and the love of the song. I feel like each song is its own little universe when you're writing it, and you get in there and see what feels right. This song, Tap Into Your Fort Worth, felt like they need to talk a lot about the city, so it's a lot of stuff they learned on Wikipedia. They're spinning things as best they can like it's the second-best zoo and it's a walkable downtown. Just trying to have the hook be hooky and fun to listen to. Our music team led by Jeff is just so good at creating an earworm that will bore into your brain and stick around there for a few days.

Kousha Navidar: Never leave because forever is too short. As we wrap up, a lot of the show is about new beginnings and second chances. How do you think Netflix has given Girls5eva a new life? What do you hope resonates with audiences and responses you've received from fans of the show?

Meredith Scardino: Their audience is second to none as far as how large their reach is, not only in America, but across the world. It's just really cool to see the show be discovered by so many new people, and just people DMing me and just being like, "Oh my God." My favorite thing ever is when I see someone that says, "I haven't laughed out loud. It's really hard to make me laugh out loud at something, and your show made me laugh really hard." I was in a meeting yesterday and this woman goes, "I have to tell you. This is very high praise for me to tell you this, but your show made me pee a little."

[laughter]

Meredith Scardino: I was like, "Thank you very much for that."

Kousha Navidar: [laughs] Back to basics, I guess. That's wonderful. We're going to end right there. Meredith Scardino is the creator of Netflix's Girls5eva. If you like it, you might pee a little bit. Let's be real. It's that funny. It's out on Netflix right now. Meredith, thank you so much for joining us and for talking about this.

Meredith Scardino: Thank you so much for having me. This is so fun.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. I'd love to go off on a little bit of Girls5eva's song, 4 Stars. Here it is.

[MUSIC - Girls5eva: 4 Stars]

We're going to start fresh, take a couple new steps

And wear our comfortable shoes

(These are comfortable, I have Barbie feet)

Look at our history, there is no mystery

The problem here was you

Take off the filter from the photograph

And look who it is you see

It isn't perfect, so what's wrong with that?

The best things in life are free

(That's why rich people never carry wallets)

So what if we risk it all and try?

Knowing we might fall, but we might fly

 

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