How Netflix's GLOW Really Changed Alison Brie's Life
Netflix shocked fans in October 2020 when the streamer reversed GLOW's season 4 renewal and canceled the series due to delays associated with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The news was hard on fans, but it was even harder on the cast, including series lead Alison Brie.
However, in an extensive interview with Collider, Brie revealed that it's hard for her to be too sad when she takes into account just how much GLOW changed her life. During the interview, she touched on her career before she joined the wrestling drama and shared that when she was filming Community and Mad Men, she didn't always feel like she had a right to be picky when it came to roles. As a result, she would use every hiatus to do two movies, no matter the quality of the script, because she felt like she needed to always be building her résumé.
According to Brie, that all changed when she landed the role of Ruth on GLOW. "I would credit GLOW as being this major turning point in my career, because it was probably the first time coming out of doing seven seasons of Mad Men and six seasons of Community that I really felt like I had earned the right to choose things," she said.
Brie added that she felt like the Netflix series allowed her to really come into her own as an actress. And because the show set such a high bar in terms of quality, she ended up doing other projects that she was proud of, including The Disaster Artist and The Little Hours.
Alison Brie wants viewers to know that she loved being on GLOW every bit as much as they loved watching it
GLOW didn't just give Brie the confidence to be pickier about her projects — she credits it with being a "life-changing" experience on every level. "When I say the show was life-changing for me it was just on every level: on a personal level in terms of my self-confidence and my relationship with my body, on a professional level, getting to be a number one on a show, getting to direct ... It inspired me to start writing and producing. I feel like there's so much I already got from it."
Still, one of the things she's most grateful to the Netflix series is the friendship she and her co-star Betty Gilpin cultivated over the course of three seasons. "I got to hone my acting with incredible actors like Betty Gilpin, who is also the love of my life," she told the outlet. "It brought me to my soulmate in her."
As of right now, Netflix has no plans to wrap up GLOW, although there is some hope that a movie will come to fruition once the pandemic is under control, but no matter what happens, Brie will forever be grateful to the show for giving her long-lasting friendships and a newfound confidence in her career choices.