Prior to the premiere of GLOW last summer, there was a lot of speculation in the community over how accurately the show would portray the world of professional wrestling, and a lot of pressure to ensure that the show didn’t disappoint fans. A large portion of that pressure could have fallen on the shoulders of one of the stars of the series, Britney Young.
Young plays the character Carmen “Machu Picchu” Wade, the youngest and only female member of a wrestling dynasty, led by her father, a famous wrestler who wants Carmen to get married and have a family instead of wrestle. As the only GLOW wrestler in the main cast to have a background knowledge of wrestling, Carmen is an integral player, teaching the other women how to wrestle and guiding them through the unfamiliar and passionate world of wrestling fandom.
For these passionate wrestling fans and general audiences alike, GLOW exceeded expectations to become one of the best reviewed shows of 2017. Ahead of the highly anticipated second season, I had an exciting opportunity to speak with Britney Young about how she’s prepared for the role, what to expect in season two, empowerment, and her own personal passions.
Many of us here at Pop Break are big fans of wrestling, so I’ve got a few wrestling-related questions for you. I don’t know how often you get those.
I get them intermixed, so let’s see how good my knowledge is.
Your character on GLOW, Carmen, is the daughter of a professional wrestler, so she’s very connected to the world of wrestling. She’s a guide to the other characters who don’t know that world as well as she does, but she’s also a guide for the audience, considering I’m not sure how many people in GLOW’s target demographic are huge wrestling fans. Was this an easy position for you to be in, or did you have to learn a lot as you were going?
I’ll be honest, I was not a wrestling fan before starting GLOW, so I didn’t really know a lot about it, epecially in terms of terminology and explaining things. But I think what really helped was having Kia Stevens, who plays Tammé, who has had a career in the WWE and TNA (Kharma in WWE, Awesome Kong in TNA and elsewhere). She really helped a lot in not only teaching me, but teaching the other girls as well, different things, more so about wrestling culture.
And then we also had Chavo Guerrero, Jr., who is our wrestling coordinator, and he is basically the male Carmen. He and I talk a lot. He comes from a wrestling family dynasty as well and had to go out there and carve his own way. So he and I talk A LOT about different things, and how he handled things as he was growing up and coming into the business, so I do think because of those two being there it wasn’t as difficult a process. But geez, if I had to be on my own and learn the way, I don’t think I could do it. [laughs]
I was actually going to ask you that as a question, because in terms of making the show authentic to wrestling fans, hiring Chavo was a good move. His uncle served as the trainer for the real GLOW, and he comes from that wrestling dynasty, so I was curious to know how it is for you to work with him, specifically, since your character has a lot in common with him.
I mean, we call Chavo “Uncle Chavo.” We are so in love with him, he is just the best. I think what really is good about Chavo is that from the get go, he always saw us as wrestlers. He never saw us as actors coming in to wrestle, he saw us as a group of women who wanted to learn this sport, and I think that really helped a lot because he is very honest, but at the same time he really knows how to give that constructive criticism. My dad is a coach, so I’m really used to that coaching mentality, and Chavo does it so well, where he’ll be like, “You know, that was great, but let me show you what we can tweak to make it even better.” And he just really comes in with a very strong firm hand, but is very sweet and kind to us, and I think that works a lot.
And we all just really bonded with him really well. We goof off and joke and play around and laugh with him and I think that makes the experience even better. But I really do appreciate him giving me even more insight, again, on just what it was like to come from a huge wrestling family, and what it was like to go out on his own, and all that stuff, and he has been a tremendous help. And you’re right, he is the lead component of making everything authentic. We don’t do any moves that weren’t invented by 1985. He very much wants to stick to, what you see on our show is what you would see on GLOW, essentially.
I actually never considered that authenticity element, that’s really cool.
Oh, yeah. We come all the time, we’re like “We just saw Lucha Underground, and The Mack did this movie, can we do it?” and he’s like, “No, that came out in 1997.”
I’m sure you know this now more than ever from being involved in the show, but wrestling fans can be super passionate in a good sense and in a negative sense. At live shows, if they’re not satisfied with how real everything looks they’ll start to boo and chant. Were you aware of that before the show, and did it ever put any pressure on you and the rest of the cast?
I mean, I definitely wasn’t aware of it before the show started. I was a cheerleader growing up, and the number one rule of cheerleading is you never boo. So even to this day, just being a sports fan, I never boo, just because I was taught that way. We’ve been to a couple wrestling events and to hear the crowd, a couple of times they have booed and done stuff, and it just… I mean it makes the atmosphere even better. Like you said, I’d rather have passionate fans that boo than complacent fans that aren’t even paying attention.
But it was very important to all of us, we wanted to obviously make a show that fans would love, but from the get-go our number one concern was that we wanted to make the wrestling fans and especially the former fans of GLOW – the original GLOW – and the GLOW girls themselves, we wanted to make them proud. And the feedback from them has just been amazing. We’ve gotten such positive feedback from everyone, and even people who are like, “Hey you did this and maybe it wasn’t great, you should do this or that,” I appreciate that. Because again, we want to make it as authentic as possible.
I’ve seen a lot of feedback from the original GLOW girls talking about the show online, and from what I’ve seen it’s nothing but positive comments about the way the wrestling aspects are being portrayed. The one interesting thing I have seen coming straight from the GLOW girls is the fact that, on the Netflix show, it’s very empowering and feminist, but if you’ve seen the documentary on GLOW –
Oh yes, I own it.
Of course you do! It wasn’t quite the way the way it is on the show, and was maybe even a little exploitative at times. Some of the girls have acknowledged that they felt taken advantage of, or thought the atmosphere was very misogynistic. What has it felt like being involved with the show and watching the process of taking something that looks very outwardly empowering, and turning it into something that IS empowering as opposed to just looking like it?
I definitely agree with that critique of the show, and I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. I think there are two parts to it. The first part of it, I think a lot people – fans, too – originally came out and were like, “This isn’t exactly GLOW’ and I think we like to tell them that we’re inspired by GLOW, but we’re not doing an exact replica of these women, point by point, or the show point by point. We’re just inspired by what they went through and certain situations. I think that has been one thing a lot of people have grappled with, “this isn’t exactly the same.”
But with that said, I actually really love the changes. Like you said, the original GLOW had very misogynistic – I remember watching on Youtube there’s a lingerie match where the girls are just straight up in lingerie. I think what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to give justice to those women and we’re trying to show this is how they should have been treated, and this is how women should be treated going forward, and I think having the women on the show take that misogynistic and patriarchal aspect and turn it on its head is very empowering.
To be like, “Hey, we’re going to take this sport that you thought was a sideshow and kind of a little freakish, and we’re going to make it strong and we’re going to make it powerful,” and I think that’s where a lot of the strength and inspiration for all of us girls on the show comes from, if that makes sense. Watching our writers take something that easily could have been girls having pillow fights and wrestling in bikinis and taking it and making it into something that’s very powerful and very strong, I think that’s very empowering to us.
Some of the main themes of GLOW are self-esteem self-acceptance, and I know that Betty Gilpin wrote an essay about how being on the show made her love and better appreciate her body. For Carmen, the journey is less about body image and more about acceptance in terms of getting her family’s approval, or overcoming her stage fright. What was your interpretation of her journey?
I think, interestingly enough, I agree with you. Carmen’s journey is more… She’s trying to find, essentially, her voice. She’s trying to find out what she personally, as Carmen, stands for and not necessarily what she, as part of the Lumber Jackson legacy, stands for. Which I thought was just a really interesting dynamic, and it actually flows into season two as well where now she’s also trying to find her voice amongst these women. With her family she kind of was in the shadow and wasn’t really allowed to do anything, and then now with these women, all she really is allowed to do is be the person who helps the girls learn how to wrestle. So she’s just trying to figure out what exactly does she want to say within her role as GLOW if that makes any sense.
It makes complete sense.
I think it’s interesting too because as Britney – kind of just going back to what you were saying about Betty and how a lot of girls on the show have found confidence within their bodies and within themselves – I’m a plus-sized girl, have been forever, there’s no qualms about that. I’ve been quite a confident person growing up. I do have my days where I’m like “Oh my gosh, my body ugh,” but coming on GLOW, I was very nervous that my character’s weight was going to be constantly brought up.
Which is a valid thing to worry about.
Especially if you look at the landscape of TV. Most of the plus-sized characters – especially the female plus-sized characters on TV shows nowadays – their entire character arc or character story is about their weight. It’s either losing weight to find love, losing weight to find self-love and self-esteem, it’s constantly there. If not the main drive, it’s part of their character arc. And what I really appreciate about Liz and Carly and all of our writers on GLOW, my weight is only brought up twice in the entire first season. One time it’s a funny joke about my cheeks because they’re huge, and I love them, and the other is actually something that I really appreciated that they brought in, where Carmen has her panic attack and the EMT basically tells her to lose weight.
That is a common problem that plus-sized people experience all the time. You go into the doctor’s office for something as simple as a cold, they’re always going to tell you to lose weight. And I really love that they threw that in there and it means a lot to me. It just means even more to me that I’m able to just be a character that’s not there for some body acceptance agenda, she’s just there to be in the space that she’s in that she naturally would be.
And to even add a cherry on top of the sundae, I love that they’re showing a plus-sized character that is active, that is strong, that is kicking ass. Because again, most of these characters on TV, it’s them struggling to even walk up a flight of stairs. I think that’s a really strong message for people to show that no, it doesn’t matter what your size is, you can be strong, physically, as well as strong mentally. And I really appreciate that from our writers, especially how they’re dealing with Carmen.
Because of how well they’ve written her, she isn’t there to be a stand-in for every plus-sized girl. She gets to be a fully-formed character.
Yes, and coming in, her ability to wrestle was never in doubt. The physicality of it was never in doubt. It was more, “Hey, unfortunately you’re a woman, I would much prefer you have kids and get married and be happy, instead of going this physical route.” Which again, even though that sucks, you shouldn’t say that about women, I just appreciate that it wasn’t an easy place to go, to go “Boom, she’s fat, she can’t wrestle.” They didn’t take the easy out.
That’s one of the things I love the most about Carmen, that she’s not insecure, she’s just having trouble getting her voice out. I’m happy to hear the direction she’s taken in Season Two because I was wondering if they were going to explore her family acceptance more or if it was going to switch gears.
It switches gears but it’s still very much her family acceptance as well. I like to say in season one she really found her place within her immediate family, and now season two she’s finding her place with her new family, which is GLOW. So it’s a little bit of both. Carmen does some new stuff this season and I was extremely ecstatic to see all of her storylines. It’s a great season for sure. All around, of course.
One of my best things about season one was Carmen’s relationship with Bash. I was a big fan of their friendship, and I thought it was nice how much he respected her and admired her and helped her overcome her problems. Is there going to be more Carmen and Bash in season two?
There is more Carmen and Bash in Season Two. On a personal level, I love Chris Lowell, he is a very important part of our team. He makes GLOW what it is and as an actor he’s so great to work across from. But I love how everybody really responded to Carmen and Bash. And it’s interesting to see what they bring out of it. Like you said friendship, I’ve heard that a lot. And then a lot of people are like “They’re going to fall in love! It’s amazing!” I love seeing all the different interpretations. Because Chris and I, from the get-go, had a lot of conversations where we even tried to figure out what exactly their relationship is. And we kind of decided on – especially going into season two – we see that these are two peas in a pod.
They come from families that don’t really accept their passions and then they find someone who knows exactly what they’re going through, and then try, like you said, to help each other to be the best people that they can be. And we really explore their dynamic a lot more in season two. It does have some rocky points, but I think everything they go through in season two is just so great. And again, it’s written so well. And it’s just a really bright spot. Any scene with Chris I’m just like “Yes!” But yeah, there’s definitely a lot more of – I was going to say a Jennifer, Bennifer name. They don’t have one yet. Barman? Cash?
I like Cash.
We’ll go with Cash. [laughs] But there’s a lot more Cash in Season Two.
I know this isn’t a straightforward retelling of the original GLOW, but in the real history of GLOW, it gets popular pretty quickly. Is that something we get to see in Season Two, the girls becoming celebrities?
Season two we really dive in a lot more into one, these friendships and relationships between all of these girls. Season One it was kind of “Oh we’re just learning, we’re figuring out what works and what doesn’t.” Season Two is a lot more about the rivalries and the competition and also the support that starts to grow within these 15 women. And you’re right, we do find that they are starting to get a little bit of fame and notoriety. And it’s interesting, we see how each girl deals with it and you have some girls like Melrose who is just obsessed with the limelight and wants to be the star and the celebrity. And then there’s some girls like Sheila who is just like, “Nope, I don’t want any of this, I just want to do my job, I just want to get out of here.”
For Carmen, she doesn’t really care about the celebrity part of it and she’s actually rather shocked when fans come and tell her “Oh you’re my favorite,” “Oh I love Machu Picchu.” She’s kind of taken aback by that. But mostly, how she deals with the newfound fame of the girls is that she wants to make sure that they stick to the wrestling procedures. It’s called kayfabe. In wrestling persona they can’t be out, they have to be these characters. And that’s how she deals with the fame, she doesn’t want to embarrass the wrestling world in any way.
Of course Carmen would be the one to try and keep kayfabe.
Oh my God, I said kayfabe so many times this season too, I’m so glad I know what it means.
So are we going to see Machu Picchu on Family Feud?
[laughs] You know what, the whole entire time, we were waiting, like, “When are they going to go on talk shows, when are we going to wrestle some late night talk show host?” I think the trajectory is a little bit slower than that. Where we left off season one, they shot the pilot. So now it’s them shooting the first full season of the show, and the fame starts to slowly build. So hopefully, knock on wood, if we get a season three we’ll get that Family Feud episode and wrestling Phil Donahue, or Sally Jessy Raphael.
There were a lot of wrestling cameos in season one. Are there any more cameos that we can look forward to this season?
Well, the Lumber Jacksons are back, I can say that. We do have a huge wrestling cameo that all of us girls were just beyond ecstatic to have, and I think that’s one of the things that I cannot say, but I will say that fans will recognize it immediately and will be pumped, just as pumped as we are. It’s really interesting, I love how we meet wrestlers and they want to be on the show. I think that’s a really awesome thing. Because of course we are just down to have anyone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwVOmTImfLA
And like I said, with the Lumber Jacksons, having Tyrus and having Carlito last year, they taught me so many things, just simple things like if you’re standing in the ring and a legend of a wrestler is talking to you outside the ring, as a sign of respect you get down on one knee and you come down to their level. Just things like that, where we would never know, and even our writers would never know because they’re not wrestlers. That just adds so much realness to our show, and we welcome any and all wrestler cameos. There’s definitely one this season that I think people will be blown away by.
It’s still pretty uncommon for a TV to be run by women with as much creative control and freedom as GLOW. But you’ve actually been on two sets run by women: you were also on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
Yeah!
What does it feel like being on a set run by women, and how does it differ from sets run by men?
In my mind the biggest difference for me has been that on sets run by women, specifically Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and on GLOW, I use the word – and I think all of us girls on GLOW use it a lot – we have a very safe set. And I don’t just mean real safety wise; like yes, we are a very safety conscious set, but I mean in the fact that this is just a safe space for us to go ahead and make the choices we want to make as creative people and we won’t get judged, we won’t be told “Oh, you know what, no, that really didn’t work.” We’re always allowed to play and we really do collaborate.
I’ve had plenty of times where I walked up to Liz and Carly and have been like “Hey, I’m not really sure if Carmen would do this, can we talk about this a little bit and figure out another way?” and they’re very open to suggestions, they want to see how we envision our characters.
And the same at Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, [Aline Brosh McKenna] and [Rachel Bloom] are very into getting others’ opinions, it’s a very collaborative space. I think that for me is the major difference on sets run by women versus sets run my men. Not to say that sets run by men haven’t been great experiences, I’ve learned a lot. There’s just something about sets run by women really trying to make it a collaborative vision, instead of “here’s what we’ve written, here’s what we’re going to do.”
It sounds like there’s just a little bit less ego involved.
Yes, there really is. And I think it’s just that everyone wants to be there to be a part of this project. So yeah, less ego. It’s not, “I’m going to come in and do what I can do,” it’s more “let’s come in and do what we all can do together.”
I follow you on Instagram, and I love your #BeeMarieReads posts, where you’ll share a book that you’re enjoying. How passionate are you about reading?
I will be honest right now, I’ve done bad in the past month and a half, I haven’t finished a book just because I’ve been more busy with work and such. But I am a huge, huge reader. I don’t know, I just… There’s something about reading to me that it’s just a great brain exercise. It really gets your mind thinking and gets your imagination working. And I love seeing how other people interpret the world or interpret other places. Like, I read The Hobbit last year for the first time, it was so great to see J. R. R. Tolkien create this world of middle earth. But I’m very passionate about reading and I think it’s an art that unfortunately is starting to disappear. Kids especially nowadays are really into celebrities and social media and all these things. I think we’re losing a very simple and beautiful art that is reading.
I’m trying to get other people to read. The girls on GLOW make fun of me all the time, and yet when they start to read, they ask me for suggestions. But I love following Reese Witherspoon’s book club, Emma Roberts has Belletrist, which is another great Instagram account that is just all about books and reading. I follow a lot of book clubs. I’m in a book club with my friends. I don’t know, I just love to read! And I think reading informs a lot of other areas of life. I learn a lot from reading, reading something might spark an idea that then leads to a movie idea or a TV show idea. I don’t know, I’m just a nerd and I love reading books! I know that was the most ineloquent answer ever.
They’re not the most popular posts on my page but I’m still going to post them anyway because that’s what my page is about, is my life, and I read a lot. So when people will respond and be like “hey if you like this book try this book,” That’s what I love, just seeing what draws other people into reading and then reading them for myself and seeing “oh ok, I see it, I get it now.”
Have you gotten a lot of feedback from people who are like “Thank you so much for showing me this book, it inspired me to get this other book?”
Yeah, a lot of people have done that. Sometimes the authors will respond back and be like “oh my gosh this is so great that you read this.” Like Abby Stern, she just wrote “According to a Source,” and she sent me that last year, it was her first book and she was like “I know you love reading, here’s this book, would love to get your opinion on it,” and it was a great book. I love interacting with writers and just seeing what really inspired them to write the book that they wrote and what’s coming up next. It’s a lot of fun.
Do you have any other spoiler-free information about what Carmen gets up to this season?
Like I said, Carmen does a few new things this year that were just so great to shoot and I just love that our writers trust me enough to go ahead and tell that part of Carmen’s story. But it’s a great season, we for sure ramp it up in season two and it’s a ramp up that is like, “Yes, this only became better.” So yeah, I’m really excited about it.
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