Amy Sherman-Palladino on Bringing Gilmore Vet Liza Weil to Mrs. Maisel: 'HTGAWM Played Ball With Us'
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Thankfully, Marvelous Mrs. Maisel boss Amy Sherman-Palladino did not have to kill anyone to procure Gilmore Girls vet Liza Weil for a three-episode guest stint in the Amazon Prime smash’s third season (now streaming). But she did have to get permission from the actresses’ How to Get Away With Murder bosses.
“They were very nice to us,” Sherman-Palladino tells TVLine, explaining that the network initially gave her the OK to use Weil in two episodes, “But we needed her for a third, and, luckily, [ABC] played ball with us.”
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And as Sherman-Palladino tells it, the role of Shy Baldwin’s lone female musician — and Midge’s kindred roadie spirit — had to be played by Weil. “Liza is a comedic genius — that is the bottom line,” she raves, before recalling their first meeting some two decades ago. “She auditioned for [Gilmore Girls‘] Rory. And she was so weird I was like, ‘Well, she can’t be Rory… ‘ But she was just so interesting and so funny that when [Gilmore was picked up to series] we were like, ‘We have to get her in.’ So we created Paris for her. Anytime we can work with Liza we will.”
So when Sherman-Palladino and fellow EP Daniel Palladino conceived of the Carole Keen character, who is loosely based on pioneering bass guitarist Carol Kaye, “We [knew we] needed somebody interesting to and we thought only of Liza. I love her and hopefully we will have her [back].” —With reporting by Kim Roots
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