‘Drunk Female Single’ Stars Sofia Black-D’Elia And Ally Sheedy On Why They Might Be The New ‘Gilmore Girls’

A few years ago, Ally Sheedy She gave up acting because, she said, “The things that came into my life were not acting on television and movies,” which included teaching at City College and work. Freelance book editor. Combine that with motherhood and Holy Flame Elmo and Breakfast Club the actress said succinctly, “My life takes different shapes.”

“I really want to keep acting because I love it and I miss it when I’m not, but it has to be the right thing to do,” she continued. “If that’s not the right thing to do, I have other things that I enjoy doing that I find really satisfying. And then this came, this show, and I thought, ‘Oh no, this is exactly what i want to do! This is what I was missing! ”

That program is Drunk single female, the play from creator Simone Finch and executive producer Jenny Konner and Daisy Gardner premieres Thursday on Freeform. The story revolves around Sam Fink (Sofia Black-D’Elia), a journalist who moves back home to Boston after a drunken meltdown at her New York media company. Forced to sleep in order to escape jail time, Sam reluctantly moves back in with his mother Carol (Sheedy), takes a job at a grocery store, and befriends AA friends as she tries to reinvent herself. myself at the ripe age of 28. It’s a story of sobriety told in a uniquely tender, humorous way; a little hint about Konner Girls in quirky performances of humour, but there’s also a harmony fitted for a network that tends to be younger like Freeform.

Sheedy calls it “a totally delicious, wonderful role,” in part because she doesn’t just play Sam’s mother; the film also allows Carol to become a fully realized woman, one who is trying to rebuild her life and dip her toes in the dating pool after her husband passed away from cancer. Forced back into her role as a parent after Sam moves in, she is immediately overbearing and disdainful, dryly telling her daughter at the series premiere, “It’s hard being one. The rest of us did the best we could during your drinking time. “

“Carol is trying to figure out who she is,” Sheedy explains of her character. “’Who am I, a woman in the world without being attached to a man? Can I function in this world without a man taking care of me or having a man take care of me? ‘ I’m just trying to negotiate with myself, who is Carol without anyone by her side, or is she the parent of a young man who has disappeared and returned, and is not tied to a guy? I’m alone who am I? What do I do with myself in the evening, what do I do with myself on the weekend? I love all those questions, especially for a woman in her fifties with no young children at home. It’s very complicated.”

Drunk single female it’s largely a fusion performance – featuring performances that steal scenes from party-loving BFF Felicia by Sam (Lily Mae Harrington), her unlikely sponsor Olivia (Rebecca Henderson), her limitless lover James (Garrick Bernard), and the tough but loving boss (Jojo Brown). But Sam and Carol are definitely the beating heart of the show, presenting a dynamic that, as I told Black-D’Elia, reminds me a bit of Gilmore Girls, though they’re a far cry from the oddly tight BFF/mother-son duo of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore.

“It’s funny when you say it because I’ve been saying it all day – the only show my mom and I watch together went Gilmore Girls. And when I first read the script, I thought of Emily and Lorelai, actually, not Lorelai and Rory. Especially in the later seasons, when they felt warmer together, but it was always complicated, it was always a bad kind of history,” she said. “Those are my favorite types of relationships, and you don’t see them very often on TV and in the movies. At least, not the nuanced, really complicated, messy version of it. So it’s been such a joy for us to explore that and really just try to get to know each other… I love the honest mother-daughter relationship, and [this show] feel like this can be like that. ”

Sam and Carol certainly enjoyed sharing their conflicts throughout season one, from passive, aggressive jabs to full-blown hits, like the scene in episode 2 where they yell at each other during closet after Sam finds out her mom is dating a new chipper guy named Bob (“You lied, you wanted me out so you could do slut, slut, slut!” she scream). But she and Carol are a lot more alike than they realize – as Black-D’Elia puts it, “They’re so similar and they think the other is from a different planet” – which means they also know the best way to hurt each other.

“Sofia is very creative and Sofia will come to a place where you are both messy and horrible,” says Sheedy. “And I like that because that’s what I like. I love being able to get messy and bad, because we are all in those moments of the days when we think no one is watching us.”

“Doing scenes like that with someone you don’t fully trust can be really difficult. But when you have the trust that Ally and I have for each other, and we really love each other so much, you just go into that closet and have fun for two hours,” Black-D’Elia added. “And we really like to push each other. We get great pleasure driving each other. So we’re going to try as hard as we can, and that’s really liberating. It’s rare to get that experience with someone on set.”

Luckily for Black-D’Elia and Sheedy, they’re just the opposites of Lorelai and Rory onscreen. In real life, they found that chemistry and trust instantly when they met in Chicago, where the pilot was shot – in the back of a truck, everywhere.

“You have to understand, I’ve been a fan of Ally Sheedy’s for a long time, and I’m so excited to meet her and so thrilled,” Black-D’Elia recounts their first meeting. . “Then I found out that it was going to be in this truck, and you know, obviously we’re trying to be very safe with the COVID protocols and we have masks and shields. I thought, ‘How am I going to connect with her and make her like me with all this going on?!’ And somehow, she walked in, we looked at each other, and we were like, ‘I love you!’ ‘I love you too!'”

Koury Angelo / Freeform

“I was sitting in the car waiting for Sophia and thinking, ‘Where is my daughter, where is my daughter? I will meet my daughter! ‘ I was so excited,” Sheedy rang the bell.“ Then she walked in and I just thought, ‘OK, calm down, Ally. Don’t overdo it right away. ‘”

Black-D’Elia added, “I think we both know that if the show is going to work then this has to be a success, you know? Carol and Sam are at the heart of the show, and if our dynamic doesn’t feel believable or meaningful to everyone… I think we were thrilled to see each other but we were also nervous, like, ‘I hope this works.’ And for some reason, the second time Ally and I met, it just went into place. ”

Whether Sam and Carol can open up to genuine feelings for each other is a questionable question; Sam, justifiably, seems to be more focused on checking his “sleep schedule” while also learning how to hang out, work, have sex, and basically just exist as a person without a drink in the day. hand. But hey, Lorelai and Emily finally made it work.