‘Étoile’ Creators Amy Sherman-Palladino & Daniel Palladino Won’t Work Without Kelly Bishop: ‘We Couldn’t Break the Streak’

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Étoile Season 1.]

When it comes to frenetic television, Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino have certainly cornered the market between Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. And with their latest venture, Étoile, the duo captures the intense world of ballet from two perspectives: New York City and Paris. They’ve also brought a familiar face along for their next ride.

The series follows as the ballet companies from both cities swap choreographers and dancers to refresh interest in ticket sales and revitalize the overall interest and preservation of the performance art. This move is juxtaposed with the reality that much of the funding for this stunt comes from businessman Crispin Shamblee (Simon Callow), who made his profits off of weapons manufacturing and pollution-causing ventures.

This is a particularly hard pill for Parisian ballerina Cheyenne (Lou de Laâge) — who is a climate change activist when she’s not twirling across the stage — to swallow. She brings her fiery passion to both her dance and fight for the planet, creating a parallel journey onscreen in a sense, as the urgency to save art is mirrored by a need to also save the earth.

Cédric Canezza / Prime Video

“It was not intentional, it was inadvertent, but they’re both very real things that need to be addressed,” Palladino tells TV Insider. “But we thought for the character of Cheyenne, her having this very strong desire to save the planet juxtaposed with Simon Callow’s character who was based on a couple of very real industrialists in America, these people that don’t seem to care at all about climate or the environment, but then put a lot of money into things like the arts and medical research… that’s kind of an ironic, funny thing for us that we tapped into,” Palladino adds.

As viewers who tuned in know, Jack McMillan (Luke Kirby), the director of the Metropolitan Ballet Theater, hails from a family who has long supported dance, so much so that his ancestral name, Fish, once adorned the theater until Shamblee threw enough money at it to brand it with his own. The dispute over changing the name brought Jack’s mother, Clara (Kelly Bishop), into the mix, reuniting Sherman-Palladino and Palladino with Gilmore Girls favorite Bishop.

“Well, Kelly has been in every one of our shows, so we couldn’t break the streak now,” Sherman-Palladino gushes. “We just can’t do a show without Kelly in it. She’s been in every show, and once you work with Kelly Bishop, you only want to work with Kelly Bishop.”

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Did Bishop’s own background in dance have any impact on her casting? Not exactly, but Sherman-Palladino adds, “The fact that she was a dancer is so cool and that she’s the original Sheila from A Chorus Line and she’s got the gams still, so it was just sort of a given because we can’t do anything without Kelly.”

As fans will recall, Bishop memorably starred as Emily Gilmore, the mother of Lauren Graham‘s Lorelai, and grandmother to Alexis Bledel‘s Rory in the WB original, which ran for seven seasons from 200 to 2007. She returned as Emily in 2016’s Netflix revival Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. Additionally, Bishop popped up in other projects from Étoile‘s creators, including Bunheads and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, making her a consistent collaborator.

Thankfully, it seems like her return for Étoile‘s second season is likely as we gear up for the next chapter of this Prime Video series. Let us know what you think of Bishop’s latest team-up with Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino in the comments section below, and stay tuned for more on Étoile as Season 2 details emerge.

Étoile, Season 1, Streaming now, Prime Video