Actress Betty Gilpin reveals that she was reduced to tears on election night while filming her new Netflix show, GLOW, as Donald Trump handed Hillary Clinton a stunning defeat.
Gilpin, who plays wrestler Liberty Bell on the sports drama, told the Daily Beast that she spent Election Night “sobbing” and shooting scenes for the hit series.
“I filmed during the election. I shot a Liberty Bell scene during the election. I was sobbing into Marc Maron’s sweater, and then we just had to suck it up and keep shooting,” she explained. “We shot very late that night, and then I went home and lied down on my face on the floor—like we all did.”
Gilpin said filming GLOW — which explores the origin of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling league — during the election “felt like empowerment boot camp.”
“I feel like if I had experienced the election without GLOW, I wouldn’t have felt ready for it,” she said. “It was great to show up to work every day with 14 other women and my body’s job for the day was to wrestle Alison Brie safely to the ground or protect Kimmy Gatewood’s neck, instead of my body’s job of trying to be as small and still as possible, which is how I feel sometimes as an actor—especially when a man is running for president where the way he speaks about women and their bodies is so degrading, I wonder if I hadn’t had GLOW, would I have been strong enough to take those things in? GLOW and the election completely changed how I exercise, how I nourish myself. I feel so much stronger and more powerful.”
The 31-year-old actress said wrestling helped her understand the various aspects of a “Trump rally.”
“Wrestling helped me objectively understand a Trump rally. If you have a warrior spirit and your job for the day is to go to the pharmacy, that’s not a really good way to funnel your warrior spirit into something,” Gilpin said, adding “At a wrestling match—or a Trump rally—you know when to cheer, when to boo, you can scream, you can pound your chest, you can be a hero, you can be a villain, and you feel like a warrior. And it makes sense in that arena.”
The Nurse Jackie star made headlines for all the wrong reasons earlier this month when she posted a photo of her Glow character flipping off Republican lawmakers, in a Fourth of July Twitter message.
Liberty Bell wishing the GOP a happy 4th!,” Gilpin wrote in the now-deleted Twitter message to the GOP.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson
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