INYIM Media Preferred Show: Co-Actress Sara Bareilles On “Beautiful Collaboration” Writing Tunes For ‘Girls5eva’ Soundtrack.
“Multi-hyphenate Sara Bareilles brought her talents to the set of Girls5eva, the Tina Fey-produced comedy that launched its Netflix comeback on Thursday.
In addition to starring as Dawn in the show’s titular girl group, Bareilles brought her songwriting chops to the writers room, where she penned lyrics for a number in season three’s finale.
“What I loved was that I was invited to play, but there wasn’t pressure,” Bareilles tells The Hollywood Reporter. “If there was a time that I was too overwhelmed with the rest of the work, [the show’s writers] would deliver incredible songs. It really felt like at-will employment, and I just loved it.”
Girls5eva tells the story of four women — Dawn, Summer, Gloria and Wickie — who were members of a briefly popular girl band in the ’90s and are now back together after two decades in a second attempt at success. The show also stars Renee Elise Goldsberry, Paula Pell and Busy Philipps. After two seasons at Peacock, Netflix picked up and renewed the sitcom for a six-episode third run, which released all at once on Thursday.
In addition to writer-creator Meredith Scardino, producers Jeff Richmond, Kyle Brier and Jack Grabow helped with the show’s music. For season three, Bareilles wrote the song that Dawn sings at the end of the group’s tour performance.
“They have done this tremendous amount of work, and they have moved mountains to make these things happen, and they’re kind of at peace,” Bareilles says of the characters’ arc in the season finale. “Wherever they are is enough and they don’t have to get fixated on the next mountaintop. I really love that as a philosophy in general.”
The singer-songwriter adds that she was especially happy about her contribution this season because of its departure from the show’s usually constant humor.
“Meredith is such a great partner in releasing me from the pressure of trying to make something funny,” she said. “I was like, ‘It’s not really funny, does it have to be funny?’ And she’s like, ‘No, it’s just a moment in their lives.’ And so I thought that was a beautiful.”
Previously, Bareilles helped write several songs in the show’s first two seasons, including “I’m Afraid (Dawn’s Song of Fears)” in season one.
“You have the writers room providing lyrics, it’s just a beautiful collaboration,” Bareilles added.
For “I’m Afraid,” specifically, “Meredith wrote these unbelievable lyrics about all of Dawn’s neuroses and all of her crazy fears,” Bareilles adds. “And it was so fun to look on the page and then just start playing four chords and start putting the words in. There wasn’t much to do, it kind of wrote itself.”
Scardino says the inter-musician collaborations are reflective of the show’s philosophy at large. The songs “are always born out of story,” she notes. “We don’t just step away and see a fun song for no reason. It always has to be kind of connected to what [the characters] doing. It’s always threaded into the story.”
All three seasons of Girls5eva are now available on Netflix. The third season’s album, now available, features 12 new tracks for fans to enjoy.” – Hollywoodreporter.com
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