‘Etoile’ Star Gideon Glick Talks His Biggest Challenge With the Famous Rapid-Fire Palladino Dialogue
Gideon Glick is an Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino veteran, having worked with them on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, on which he had a recurring role as a peculiar magician. Therefore, he knew what to expect when it came to the rapid-fire, cadenced dialogue that the Palladinos are known for. But their new show, Étoile — set in the world of ballet, spanning across New York and Paris with its dialogue half in French, half in English — brought its own set of challenges to the theater actor, whose Broadway work includes Spring Awakening and To Kill a Mockingbird, which garnered him a Tony nomination in 2019.
“The text is always challenging because it’s meaty,” says Glick, who also starred in the TV shows Devious Maids and American Horror Story: NYC. “The experience of living in another country — granted, it was Paris — was [an added challenge] because I’m pretty deaf. I can’t hear in my right ear, I’m losing hearing in my left, and so I find [two] languages and accents to be challenging. And I find being on set challenging because it’s a lot of people talking. I miss a lot because I just can’t hear. But it also weirdly helped me get into character because Tobias feels isolated from the world, and it’s hard for him to communicate with people. That’s how I felt in Paris.”
In Étoile, Glick plays choreographer Tobias Bell, transferred to Paris as part of a swap between two ballet companies in the French capital and New York. His character is obsessive, striving for perfectionism, but that’s what makes Tobias endearing — because it’s all for the love of the craft.
“With Tobias, it’s not about ego, it’s not about being the best, it’s just that he cares so much about the art,” says Glick. “He’s not conniving, he’s not manipulative. You see what you get. Off-putting from his bluntness, but it comes from a place of sincerity.”
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He adds: “Tobias understands the world his own way, and if it doesn’t coincide with how other people perceive the world, it doesn’t make sense to him and it can cause a viscerally negative response. He is so adamant about how he sees the world, he sort of bends it to his own will.”
Glick started on Étoile in the writers room, which helped him prepare for his portrayal of Tobias, explains the actor. “[The Palladinos] sent me a character breakdown before we started, and when I read Tobias, I thought, ‘I feel seen in a way,’ ” the 37-year-old actor says. “I feel very seen by Amy and Dan. I think they see a quality in me that is very odd, and they like to illuminate that. But it took about a month into the writers room before they offered me the part. Fortunately, I was really enmeshed in Tobias’ world by the time we did our first table read.”
While writing, he did a lot of research on the history of ballet and started taking in performances at Lincoln Center. The fact that famed choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, who appeared on the show as himself, is a personal friend of Glick’s also helped him learn about the world. Well-known ballet dancers Tiler Peck and Unity Phelan also “took me under their wing,” adds Glick.
Glick faced pressure to deliver his lines perfectly during filming because many of his scenes were with professional dancers who could only do a routine a few times before exhaustion kicked in. “They only have so many times they can do it because their bodies will break, and dancing is not meant to do take after take,” Glick explains.
After this interview, news arrived that Étoile had been canceled by Prime Video after one season. Still, its purpose was fulfilled. Says Glick: “The show is all about people being exposed to ballet, and it’s fresh and sexy. All of a sudden, ballet is not something that’s esoteric or strange — it’s actually accessible.”
This story first appeared in a June stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
