Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies' Alexis Sides Breaks Down Episode 7 (Exclusive)

By Jamie Jirak - May 11, 2023 06:46 pm EDT

The seventh episode of Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies dropped on Paramount+ today and it follows the T-Birds as they ditch school, smoke some reefer, and head to a casino to try their luck. The iconic guy gang is made up of Richie (Jonathan Nieves), Gil (Nicholas McDonough), Shy Guy (Maximo Salas), and Potato (Alexis Sides), and "Cruisin' for Bruisin'" dives a little deeper into each character. In honor of the new episode, ComicBook.com had the chance to chat with Sides about Potato and the episode's hijinks as well as the discovery that his character takes care of his siblings because of their father's PTSD.

"We had a talk, [showrunner] Annabel [Oakes] and Alethea [Jones], executive producer and director of episodes one, two, and seven. We had a discussion about the characters before we started filming to decide what the character was going to be like. And yeah, they did share with me that Potato had siblings and that he had a father that had suffered PTSD due to war," Sides explained.

He continued, "So as an actor, it was pretty exciting to get into it. Because Potato, he's a very funny guy and everything, so there's a lot of range in this show for Potato, which I'm really grateful for. I get to show off his quirky side while also showing off his emotional and deeper side, so that's amazing. I mean, I guess we all get to do it in this episode," he added, referring to a scene that features all of the T-Birds getting choked up talking about their personal woes.

"Yes, it was amazing," Sides said of the scene. "It was a real beautiful moment. It was funny because beforehand, we knew we were going to film that scene ... And when we finished the one prior to that one, they were like, 'Cut.' And everybody was like, 'Okay, here we go. The next scene is that one.' So everybody just put their AirPods on, whatever they had, and we all separated. We all took our own spots and we started getting into it. And it wasn't until they called us that, I don't know, everything started happening, everything started coming up together. And it was just beautiful, it was just a beautiful moment. And a moment where we all got to be very vulnerable, which is weird to see in the T-Birds sometimes."

There's a very silly bit in the episode where Potato makes a bet with a tough-looking guy named The Bear (Jason Burkart) that involved tickling his nipple. Naturally, we had to ask Sides about how the tickle went down behind the scenes.

"It was a great part to film," Sides shared. "I remember Alethea had just told me... Literally, it was so short what they showed on screen, but it literally, was five minutes tickling his nipple, giving different faces. Alethea was like, 'Okay, now give me another face. Okay, now give me another face. Now do something like this. Now do something like this. Now tickle the nipple like this. Now like this.' It was five minutes of just tickling his nipple and just straight eye contact. So it was fun." He added, "I'm there for, like, 'Let's act, baby.' But yeah, it was just hilarious. I can't imagine how everybody was behind the screens at the video village and everything, they must have been cracking up."

Stay tuned for more from our interview with Alexis Sides, and check out the latest episode of Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies on Paramount+.

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