‘Glow’ Star Betty Gilpin Reveals Her Hopes For Season 2

“Glow” star Betty Gilpin received some good news recently: her Netflix dramedy about women’s wrestling got picked up for a second season. When the actress spoke to International Business Times last month, Gilpin revealed that she already had some ideas about what she wants her character Debbie to do in “Glow” Season 2.

“I hope that Debbie uses the sense of empowerment that she finds in wrestling and applies it to other parts of her life, whether it’s standing up for herself in the line for a sandwich or maybe she’ll run for office,” Gilpin suggested.

“Glow,” based on a true story, follows the start of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (G.L.O.W.) in the 1980s. Gilpin plays a former soap opera star and new mom who discovers her husband is cheating on her with her best friend Ruth (Alison Brie). After getting accidentally cast in the wrestling show, she has to work with Ruth daily.

Working with the woman who wrecked your family takes some serious confidence, something Debbie has in spades. “I am a person who is not as confident as Debbie,” Gilpin admitted. “I think that Debbie considers herself a queen, and on my worst days, I consider myself the scrappy chambermaid. But the scrappy chambermaid gets all the best lines! So I was always excited to play someone very different.”

While Gilpin isn’t as self-assured as Debbie yet, she’s getting there. The New York native wrote an essay for Glamour about how the show changed her confidence. While she certainly isn’t as comfortable in her body as Debbie is, she’s working on it. She said she shared her story because she knew she couldn’t be alone in feeling this way.

“I still feel like I’m a mess and like I’m scared sometimes, like I’m faking it, I’m a fraud and everyone else has got it figured out,” she said. “I sort of thought, O.K. I’m sure other people feel that way. Maybe there’s a version of being in the spotlight to whatever degree where it can be the true version of myself. [There are] things that I’m struggling with and questions I’m still asking.”

In the essay, Gilpin notes that the effect wrestling had on her body made her feel more at ease in her own skin, and she told IBT that she has kept up with her training since Season 1 filming finished.

“Wrestling has totally changed how I exercise and think about my body,” she said. “I live in New York, and I train with this woman who runs Brooklyn Strength. Her name is Cadence Debus. She has a real feminist approach to exercise. We talk more about the function of my body and how I can get realigned and stronger and jump higher, and we never talk about carbs or genes, which is exclusively what I would talk about with trainers of yore.”

Feminism isn’t just part of her offscreen training. It’s one of the key elements of “Glow” onscreen as well. Debbie and Ruth are the leads on the Netflix show, but they don’t have real love interests. The main story is their fractured friendship.

“It’s all very true to me that the major loss, the main relationship that’s lost is Ruth and Debbie’s and not Debbie and Mark’s,” Gilpin commented. “I thought that was very telling. I think that Debbie is realizing that, ‘Oh, a lot of the people who I was depending on for validation seem to value things about me that are going to expire, and Ruth is someone in my life who values the real me and things that have existed in me since I was 8 and will until I’m 90. And I need that person in my life because I see her in the same way.’”

One of the most talked about feminist scenes on the show was Ruth’s abortion. Gilpin appreciated that it wasn’t overdramatic and Ruth wasn’t regretful. “Watching that scene is very hard for me because I want Debbie to be there in the waiting room with her,” the Forham University alum said. “I don’t think Debbie would be so excited to know that it was Mark’s baby, but I’m like, ‘Oh she needs Debbie!’”

When “Glow” Season 1 ended, Debbie was still in the dark about Ruth’s abortion. How would Debbie have reacted to that news? Gilpin has a pretty good idea of what would have happened. “I feel like the damage is done, and I feel like Debbie would’ve just poured herself a pitcher of margarita mix and drank the whole thing from the pitcher,” Gilpin chuckled.

Fans will have to wait and see if Debbie finds out about Ruth’s abortion in Season 2. Netflix has yet to announce a release date, but viewers will likely be waiting until 2018 for the next 10 episodes.