Janelle James really thought she nailed her GLOW audition

“I haven’t thought about this in a while. Another thing I was excited about that I auditioned for once was GLOW. Do you remember that? The female wrestling,” she explains. “I really wanted that role. It was for one of the female wrestlers and we had to make up an ’80s rap and perform it in the audition, and also do a fight scene with ourself. And I did this rap that I performed, and then I did a round kick in the audition. And I remember leaving that audition like, ‘Nailed it!’ And did not get that role.” She admits, “I have not watched one second of that show. I’m so salty. Maybe I’ll watch it today.”

GLOW starred Alison Brie and Betty Gilpin, leading an ensemble cast of the “Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.” The series met its untimely end when Netflix renewed and then canceled it before the fourth season amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Not too long after that, James landed the role of Principal Ava Coleman on Abbott. But “I don’t even remember how I felt except fear of going outside, and that’s unfortunate,” she says of getting the part during the earlier days of the pandemic. Still, when she first got the script for Abbott Elementary she realized that “‘This is good.’ I was like, ‘This is hilarious, not only my role, but I can see every character very clearly.’ It was so well written, I was reading it and laughing out loud,” she says. “I was like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna try for this.’ And I did have the thought that even if I didn’t get it, I knew it would be good. I knew it would go, at least to pilot. I was like, ‘This is gonna be a thing.'” She got that right!