Meredith Scardino, creator and showrunner of Girl5evais no stranger to the Emmy-winning community.
She began her career as a writer of late-night comedies and wrote for six years for The Colbert Report, where she won four Emmy trophies. She also worked as a writer and producer on the series Tina Fey and Robert Carlock Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidtwhich received 18 Emmy nominations during its four seasons.
With Girl5eva After the series was canceled by Peacock at the end of its second season and is now running on Netflix, the musical comedy’s Emmy nomination for best screenplay feels all the more special.
“Of course, this has a very special meaning, given the blood, sweat and tears that have been put into it,” says Scardino.
Sara Bareilles, who stars alongside Renée Elise Goldsberry, Paula Pell and Busy Philipps in the series about a ’90s girl group that gets a second chance at fame, also received a nomination for best original music and best lyrics for the song “The Medium Time” in the season three episode “New York.”
Here, Scardino and fellow writer Sam Means talk about how they earned numerous Emmy nominations for the Fey-produced comedy.
To be recognized by Emmy voters outside the bubble that Girl5eva The writers’ room must be enjoyable.
MEREDITH SCARDINO It really means a lot to me to be nominated for screenplay. I’m impressed by our peer group. I absolutely love our show, of course. It’s just nice to be recognized by other people who do the same job. And I would love to see our cast nominated in acting categories. I think everyone deserves a nomination, but it’s especially gratifying that Sara is being recognized for her song “The Medium Time.” It’s just so beautiful and I can’t believe I know her.
SAM MEANS It is wonderful for Sara to be nominated personally for her talent and for this song, but also to recognize the music that is at the core of this show.
You obviously weren’t finished with Girl5eva when Peacock canceled the series after the second season.
SCARDINO We always felt like it had to keep going. You kind of feel it when something’s in the bag. There’s such an alchemy of things that have to come together to make something feel really alive and special. There are just so many things that go wrong all the time. And with this show, we’ve always had challenges from the beginning. We started in 2020 before there was a (COVID) vaccine and wrote the show on Zoom. This cast and our crew are so resilient and it feels like we’re always up for a challenge. It’s like, “OK, great, we’re moving the party to Netflix.”
Have your connections to Tina Fey and Robert Carlock given Netflix comfort to Girl5eva?
SCARDINO In fact, Andy Weil, who works at Netflix, was our executive on Kimmy Schmidt. I had introduced Tracey Pakosta to her when she was at NBC and she loved the show. So they were our favorite fans of Girl5eva from the second it dropped. Because of those great relationships, when it became apparent that it could potentially have a new home, they were immediately very interested. It happened very quickly.
What did the platform change mean for your audience?
SCARDINO I can say that our audience has grown tremendously. Our actors get stopped on the street all the time. That wasn’t really the case before when we were on Peacock – which was fantastic for us, by the way. I can only say positive things about Peacock because they believed in the show and gave us two great seasons. But the Netflix audience is the world.
The success of Girl5evathe band, now consists of four former girl group characters. Tell us about writing your cast for season three.
SCARDINO We knew at the end of season two that they were going to get in the van and do a DIY tour. You want to pay that off in season three. It always felt like the natural next step. So before the season started, I asked Sara if she wanted to go get food together, and she talked about life on the road. Some of that stuff is a big part of the show. And when something happens in someone’s life that feels relevant to those characters, a lot of times it does. Sometimes they say the writers and I have secret meetings with their therapists because it feels like art imitates life, or life imitates art very much.
You were given a six-episode order at Netflix, which meant you had to be more specific in the writers’ room.
SCARDINO It was a little smaller than the first two seasons, so we had to stick a little closer to our season arc. But we didn’t feel like we left out anything we really wanted to. Of course we could have written 1,000 episodes for these ladies, but I think the six were a nice, close six.
MEANS Meredith’s vision for the show is so clear and the voices of these characters are so clear. It was just about staying true to her.
This story first appeared in an August single issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine and subscribe, click here.
