How Prime Video’s New Ballet Series, <i>Étoile</i>, Jetéd Its Way to the Screen

The stages of New York City are no strangers to stunt casting (just look at all the celebrities who have graced Broadway’s finest shows through the years), but in the new Prime Video series Étoile, two ballet companies take the stunt to a whole new level. The esteemed (and fictional) Metropolitan Ballet Theater in New York and Le Ballet National in Paris agree to swap their top dancers to revitalize business and boost ticket sales. What could go wrong?

It may come as no surprise that Étoile comes from TV veterans Amy-Sherman Palladino and Dan Palladino, who not only created Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, but also the short-lived ABC series Bunheads, which ran for only one season. (R.I.P.!) Throughout Étoile’s eight episodes, they take audiences on a journey as the companies endure outcries from the dance world, navigate their complicated personal relationships, and try to appease an uncooperative, furious star. But it just might all work out by curtain call.

With the Palladinos’ signature quick-witted dialogue, a Maisel-esque color palette, and beautiful dance numbers, Étoile just might be your next TV obsession.

Sherman-Palladino is a longtime lover of dance. “Bunheads gave us a little taste of the fun of being in that world on a smaller scale. I trained as a dancer, so I have been mystified that nothing has really come close to capturing the weirdness of the dance world. They’re an odd, amazing bunch of people,” she told Vanity Fair.

She similarly told the New York Times that the idea “festered in our minds, and we had to do something about it.” She explained, “We wanted to show that ballet isn’t something for someone else. It’s storytelling; it’s athletic; it’s powerful, emotional, transporting. It’s a great, dynamic art form.”

Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino wanted to take an authentic approach to portraying ballet on-screen.

While the series touches on the evergreen conflict of making art versus making money, it resonates on an even deeper level now, as live theater is still struggling to bounce back after Covid.

“You almost lost a generation of dancers in COVID, because you have to keep the training going,” Charlotte Gainsbourg, who plays French national ballet director Geneviève, told VF. “A kid starts training at five, they missed years six, seven, and eight—that’s kind of it. Or dancers who were in their prime, and by the time COVID or strikes are over, now they’re looking at, ‘Well, shit, what’s next for me?’ That’s a huge loss to the arts. We don’t know what would’ve [or] could’ve been.”

Tiler Peck, a principal dancer at the New York City Ballet who has a small role in the show, applauds the Palladinos’ approach to portraying the dance world.

“The two of them took the time to do this in an authentic way,” she told ELLE.com. “I remember Dan was writing an episode when I was shooting, and he was like, ‘Tiler, come here. Who would be the one ballerina that you guys would all look up to?’ And I said, ‘Oh, I guess Maya Plisetskaya.’ … It was fun to be a little part of that. I just had a ball. And Amy really loves ballet. I remember we were shooting a dance scene, and she was like, ‘Somebody’s arm is not right.’ And I was like, Oh my God. She really does know.”

Taïs Vinolo as Mishi (center) in Étoile

The Palladinos reunited with some stars from past projects but also forged some new collaborations, including with real-life ballet dancers.

Luke Kirby, a Mrs. Maisel alum, stars as Jack McMillan, the director of the Metropolitan Ballet in New York. French icon Charlotte Gainsbourg (Melancholia) plays Geneviève Lavigne, his French counterpart (and former fling).

Charlotte Gainsbourg (center) as Geneviève Lavigne

Jack is not a dancer himself, “but has a real affection for the craft and the art and the people,” Kirby explained to ELLE.com during a set visit. “This world is the place where he is able to still find magic and the experience of being alive. I think it’s the most important thing in his world, to a fault.”

Luckily, Kirby didn’t have to spend much time away from the Palladinos after ending Mrs. Maisel. He remembers how they took him out to dinner to offer him the lead role for Étoile: “We’ve just sort of stayed in touch and been able to keep the creative thing going at the same time, which has been really just a great gift, because that was hard to say goodbye to the whole series,” he says.

Luke Kirby as Jack McMillan

Lou de Laâge (The Innocents) stars as Cheyenne Toussaint, a megastar Parisian ballerina who is traded to the New York company to her chagrin. She’s abrasive and brash, but somehow, she gels with her dance partner, Gael Rodriguez, played by David Alvarez (Bernardo in Spielberg’s West Side Story).

de Laâge was “incredible to work with,” Alvarez told ELLE.com. “She’s such a powerhouse. I’m just trying to keep up with her.”

The Palladinos had their eyes on Alvarez for a while too, though. They saw him in Billy Elliott on Broadway, in which he starred from 2008 to 2010, and then after West Side Story came out in 2021, they wanted to talk.

“So we video chatted on Zoom and kind of talked about this idea. This was [three] years ago, way before everything was put on paper. And Amy and Dan were saying, ‘Hey, we’re very interested in working with you. We want to write this character for you and see if it vibes with you and if you like it.’ And I would never say no.”

Lou de Laâge as Cheyenne and David Alvarez as Gael

Gideon Glick, who also appeared on Maisel, plays New York-based choreographer Tobias Bell, who is also sent to Paris in the swap. His eccentric style doesn’t quite fit in with the French tradition. “I would say [he’s] an esoteric choreographer who sort of speaks his own language,” Glick told ELLE.com.

Gideon Glick as Tobias Bell

Yanic Truesdale, whom you might recognize as Michel from Gilmore Girls, also reunites with the Palladinos as a recurring guest on Étoile. “For me, it’s very special because I’ve obviously known Amy and Dan for 25 years, 26 years since Gilmore Girls,” he shared. As Raphaël Marchand, he’s the artistic director of the Paris Opera and is “very dedicated to the work and dedicated to his boss,” Geneviève.

As for Tiler Peck, who appears as a dancer on the series, a role was literally made for her.

“The choreographer [Marguerite Derricks] was my jazz teacher when I was eight years old, and when she started this project, she told me, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun if our worlds collided?’ They had me read to see if I could act, and then, that was it. It was like, ‘Amy [Sherman-Palladino] is writing a part for you,’” Peck told ELLE.com.

The cast also includes Ivan du Pontavice (Rupture), Taïs Vinolo (The Show Must Go On), David Haig (Four Weddings and a Funeral), LaMay Zhang, and Simon Callow (Outlander).

Yanic Truesdale as Raphäel and Gainsbourg as Geneviève

Prep was different across cast members. The show’s choreographer, Marguerite Derricks, cast about 20 real-life dancers each for the New York and Paris ballet companies, according to Time. They not only appear in performance scenes onstage, but also in rehearsals and in the halls and dressing rooms. Derricks told Time that the dancers, who were cast in an open call, came from various backgrounds, and they would take daily classes together, kind of forming their own company.

For Alvarez, he’d sometimes take “an hour or two-hour class, and an hour or two-hour rehearsal, at least three times a week.” The cast would also rehearse on the lot before shooting, which was a big help, he says.

“I’m glad I was fortunate enough to do it when I was a kid, so that process isn’t as difficult for me now,” he explains. “I think ballet has served me in everything I’ve done artistically, whether it’s music or acting or whatever. … It’s nice to tap into that again.”

Dancers on the New York set of Étoile

For Glick, who plays a choreographer, it was more about learning the vocabulary than executing the moves.

“For this, I’ve been training for almost a year now. I do two classes a week in ballet and Pilates, so my body is really happy with myself. When you play a choreographer, it’s not necessarily about being able to execute these dance moves. I know that I want to understand the vocabulary, and I also want to be able to present a character who has spent his life in this world, and so there’s a certain way that you move and a certain way you carry yourself, but the trainings really help.”

His past experience working with the Spring Awakening choreographer (Glick originated the role of Ernst), Bill T. Jones, was also informative. “It really has helped me because Bill is very specific and really speaks his own language and so does Tobias.” He also talked to Christopher Wheeldon, a Tony-nominated choreographer for MJ the Musical, and watched The Turning Point.

Mrs. Maisel costume designer Donna Zakowska teamed up with the Palladinos again for Étoile. She not only also comes from a dance background, but has the experience to dress a massive cast on both sides of the Atlantic.

For the series to mirror real-life dance culture, Zakowska studied dancers in both Paris and New York to get a sense of how performers dress in their respective cities. It wasn’t as simple as throwing every dancer in a black leotard and pink tights.

“In dance classes, the Parisian look is a little bit more classic. The color palette is a bit more classic. Then when we get to America, it’ll probably be more T-shirts and casual, some Adidas pants over sweatpants and things like that,” she explains to ELLE.com.

“I’ve looked at a lot of research of ballet classes in schools in France, in New York, and spent a lot of time comparing the look. In one sense, it’s very similar, but then in another, it’s different, a little bit more elegant in a way.”

She and her team sourced clothing from everywhere: Capezio in New York and Repetto in Paris, dresses from vintage stores, pieces from the flea market, even jackets for de Laâge from Japan and Australia. She made some pieces custom for de Laâge, including one she wears to the gala.

The tutus were mostly built as well (as opposed to rented from ballet companies), which turned the undertaking into “a much bigger project than I think anyone imagined,” Zakowska says. “You know, there are 26 ballerinas in this [scene], there are 17 ballerinas in [that scene]. The numbers really add up.”

The same thing goes with bigger ensemble sequences that didn’t only consist of dancers. One gala scene early in the season, for example, had over 200 extras. “If you have two days with 250 extras, you have 500 [looks] right there.”

When asked to give a ballpark estimate on the number of costumes in season 1, she chuckles, “It’s in the thousands.”

A rehearsal scene in Paris

Prime Video ordered two seasons of Étoile right away, back in 2023. While viewers will have to wait and see where the series will go next, Glick, who is also part of the writer’s room, teased last year that they were already starting to plan for season 2. “I think we’re thinking big-picture, and we’ve talked about big arcs,” he said.

Regardless of where the show goes next, Alvarez says, “I trust Amy and Dan. I trust the whole team so much that all I have to do is just show up and know my lines and then hope I can deliver what they’re looking for.”

With a two-season order, it seems like Amazon trusts them too.

Yes that’s Nesquick, who was a consummate professional.

A bull goes loose at the opera in one episode this season.

Behind the scenes on the set of Étoile in April 2024

Watch Étoile on Prime Video