Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies released its season finale on Paramount+ earlier this week, and it featured a lot of big moments for Rydell High’s first girl gang. After Richie (Johnathan Nieves) and Buddy (Jason Schmidt) are both kicked out of Rydell, Jane (Marisa Davila) and Susan (Madison Thompson) hatch a plan that will allow one of the boys to stay in school. They decide to race for it, and whoever wins, everyone will agree that the other person will be blamed for the fight. However, due to some unforeseen circumstances, Jane and Susan are the ones who end up having to race. In honor of the finale, ComicBook.com had the chance to chat with Davila, who talked about her big driving moment.
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“Me and Madison had a couple driving lessons for our driving episode, because we had to learn how to drive that type of car, which I’ve been now told is called ‘Three on a Tree.’ And it’s just referring to what a shift it is,” Davila explained. “So I didn’t even know that we would do drag racing until I was in the costume department, and you find out all the juiciest stuff in the costume department, because they get all the scripts early, because they have to prep early, and I was putting on this really beautiful striped dress and I was like, ‘What’s this for?’ I didn’t always know what I was fitting for. And she was like, ‘Oh, the drag race,’ and I was like, ‘Drag race. What? That’s so cool.’ … I thought that Jane would be the one to do the flags, and she was like, ‘No, you’re racing.’ And I was like, ‘I’m racing the drag race?’ And she was like, ‘Yeah.’ I was like, ‘Who am I racing against?’”
Davila continued, “The whole time, she was like, ‘Susan. How do you not know that?’ … I have this photo because Madison happened to be out of town when I found out, so I FaceTimed her and I screen-shotted her reaction … It’s just so cool. And again, it’s like … man, I wouldn’t have thought of that, but it makes so much sense.”
Cynthia Comes Out:
Another big moment in the season finale is when Cynthia (Ari Notartomaso) comes out to Nancy (Tricia Fukuhara) in a sweet scene that sees them writing notes back and forth because the words are too hard to say out loud. We spoke to Fukuhara about the scene, and she explained why doing such an emotional scene wasn’t as big of an acting challenge as you’d think.
“Oh, it was great,” Fukuhara said of filming the scene. “And honestly, I actually don’t even feel like it was a challenge. I think that was one of the easiest scenes to shoot because it … I mean, I think it really hits close to home for both Ari and myself. And I’ve had people who I care very deeply about come out to me and just remembering what that was like for them and for me. And I really feel like nobody really had to act in that scene … We just have to remember the line and be there for each other and just, it’s more technical at that point. I don’t write with my left hand, so that was the hardest part for me.”
She continued, “Yeah, our director’s like, ‘You can switch hands.’ I’m like, ‘No. Nancy can be ambidextrous … She’s a lefty.’ But then every time Ari would laugh, it was because Ari literally could not read what I wrote. It was so sweet … And I remember Ari said something to me like, ‘I’m really glad that if I was going to do the scene that it was with you.’ I’m like, ‘Honestly, same.’ I feel like we both connected to it so deeply as our characters and as ourselves, and driving back in the car together and talking, debriefing the scene and just what it was like to be on set with each other and how honored we both feel to be there.”
Getting Pied in the Face:
Fukuhara’s Nancy has another fun moment in the finale that is a nod to the original Grease. A few episodes earlier, Nancy began a romance with Potato (Alexis Sides), but she’s struggling with the normalcy of a romance and public displays of affection. In an attempt to keep things interesting, Potato yells the classic Sandy line, “You’re a fake and a phony and I wish I never laid eyes on you,” before throwing a pie in her face. Of course, the pie-in-the-face game is also featured at the carnival in the original film. We asked Fukuhara how many times she had to get pied, and she shared a hilarious behind-the-scenes story.
“‘All right, so first take of the day, we’re not going to do the pie until later because we’re going to have to reset Trisha’s makeup, which takes a bit,’” Fukuhara recalled what they said to Sides on set. “So he was like, ‘Okay.’ I’m like, ‘So no pie. Okay?’ ‘Okay, got it. Okay, no pie.’” She continued, “So we go for a take and he’s holding the pie, and I’m like, ‘Okay, he’s not going to do it because we said, no pie.’ And he’s starting to lift it. And I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh … Do I stop this? Do I stop this take? We’re not supposed to do it.’ And it just comes out … And everybody, we all heard, ‘No Pie, Alexis.’ And literally, the entire cast, that reaction from the background from everyone was so real and from me. So I’m not sure if that’s the take that we ended up going with, but I hope we did because that was so real.”
She continued, “So Cash, he’s part of the props department, and he was like, ‘I think you should pie him in the face.’ I’m like, ‘I think that’s a great idea.’ And so we were trying to do it, but the T-Birds had already wrapped for the day … So we’re like, ‘Hold up. Final day on set, let’s do it at the very end when we finished completely shooting the whole season.’ I didn’t know we were all going to give speeches. I thought we were just going to give a quick thank you to everybody. But then suddenly the microphone was being passed around. I’m like, ‘Oh, no.’ And so it came to me and I gave Annabel [Oakes], our showrunner, this album, this vinyl that we had the cast sign. It was really great. It was gifted by one of our costumers, Jeffrey. He founded it for her. And it was a really special moment.”
“And I was like, ‘And then also, Alexis, can I see you really quick? I have something really special to say to you,’” Fukuhara recalled. “So I brought him forward, and then I had my friend, Cash, off to the side, and then I had worked it out with Nicholas [McDonough], who plays Gil to distract him for a second. And he turns around and I pied him in the face, and it was the last moment of the last thing that we ever shot. And it was a really sweet way to end everything. And he’s like, ‘I feel so special that you did that. You went through all of that pie to me in the face.’”
Stay tuned for more from our interviews with the cast of Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, which is now streaming on Paramount+.
