GLOW star Alison Brie and WWE champ Becky Lynch share the cover of ESPN Magazine and talk about their experiences with women’s wrestling in a joint interview. GLOW, which is soon returning to Netflix for season 3, is based on a real women’s wrestling show from the 1980s (the name stands for “Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling”).
Brie plays Ruth Wilder, a struggling actress who ends up being cast on the show alongside frenemy Debbie Eagan (Betty Gilpin). Though things initially seem unworkable due to the fact that Ruth slept with Debbie’s husband, their real-life enmity ends up fueling a partnership within the ring – with Debbie playing the heroic Liberty Belle and Ruth playing heel character Zoya the Destroya. The other star of the cover, Becky Lynch, is a professional wrestler who this year claimed both WWE Women’s Championship titles at Wrestlemania 35. Between Lynch’s double win, the return of GLOW, and the critically-acclaimed Paige biopic Fighting With My Family, it’s been a big year for women in wrestling.
To celebrate, ESPN Magazine dedicated a cover to Brie and Lynch to promote a joint interview, in which Lynch reflects on her career so far and Brie talks about the challenges of throwing herself into an extremely physical role for GLOW. “I can’t imagine how hard it must be to throw yourself into that world like Alison has and take those bumps,” Lynch comments in the interview. “Because it doesn’t matter what ring you’re in, they all hurt.”
Though Brie only plays a wrestler, whereas Lynch is the real thing, they both point out in the interview that there’s not much difference. Brie was required to do intense physical training for GLOW and performs many of the wrestling moves herself. She says that during the first season the cast’s mantra was “I’m a wrestler,” and they used it to power through the most difficult shooting days. Apparently there were plenty of those in season 3 as well:
“In Season 3, I do a move where I backflip off of the top rope onto another actress. Now, when I do other jobs, I’m like, ‘You know I do my own stunts.’ [Laughs] There is nothing fake about people’s full body weight slamming onto the mat. I’m taking an Epsom salt bath every night when we’re shooting matches. We’ll shoot it for 12 hours, doing these big moves over and over, and you wake up the next day feeling like you’ve been hit by a bus.”
Aside from being a fan of the original GLOW in her late teens, Lynch got up close and personal with one of its stars. “[GLOW veteran] Ivory was one of the first women that I wrestled,” Lynch revealed. “She was phenomenal. We worked together in Vancouver, and she took my championship from me.”
