But with BET+’s remake series (featuring an all-Black main cast) having just launched its second season on the streaming platform, you could argue that the show is really based on the present-day, behind-the-scenes bonding of stars Jill Scott, Michelle Buteau, Michelle Mitchenor andRyan Michelle Bathé. These actresses find pitch-perfect moments of authenticity (and hilarity!) in their characters’ interactions, delivering the kind of true-to-life vibes that’ll have you thinking of their onscreen alter egos as your real-life BFFs. Or, as Buteau recently said about her castmates while speaking to Parade.com in an exclusive interview alongside Scott and Mitchenor, “This feels like the first season of The View…I love you all; you all are hilarious.” “Those women on that show, they’re really honest with each other. And that’s what we do in real life. You become vulnerable in front of them and allow them to, you know, lift you up,” adds Scott, who plays Hazel Rachelle, an A-list artist angling for a comeback. “There’s romance, we deal with divorce, things falling apart and picking back up together, and friendships. I feel privileged to do this show and to do it with the women I’m doing it with because everything would be different if the vibe wasn’t there. If the sincerity wasn’t there, it wouldn’t be the same show at all.” Buteau likewise adds, “That’s the vibe with these women: When we leave the house to go live our dreams, let’s have it mean something. This is the first time I’m working in an all-female cast, a Black show, and then also with mothers. That trifecta is amazing.” Or, as described by Mitchenor—who joined the main cast this season as big-time attorney Jayla Wright—First Wives Club’s second season is all about the “evolution of the sisterhood.”
Jill, let’s start with you. Being a Black woman, what is it like to reprise these roles from this very iconic movie?
Scott: First Wives Club is really one of my favorite movies. I’m a Bette Midler fan. You know, she’s on my wall right now. She’s everything to me—an actor, a singer, a producer. She’s the bomb, one of the artists that I admired earlier. With First Wives Club, with Goldie Hawn… I love all of them. So to be able to do this, and it be specifically Black? Why we’re not remaking First Wives Club; we reinvented First Wives Club. I feel privileged to do this show.
Bette Midler also never ascribed to typical Hollywood beauty standards. As a curvy woman, I love how much we’re represented in the First Wives Club series.
Buteau: Thank God for [show creator] Tracy [Oliver] putting her spin on it and booking plus-sized women. No matter what shape, size and shade, we can all come together and showcase what real life is like. We’re light, we’re bright, we’re thicker. We have better bank accounts. We’re flying high and we still have decisions to make. I really hope Hollywood takes a big, strong look at this—what’s happening right now in this movement, because women’s stories are timeless. You take the formula, and you make it diverse and you add some stank on it, and it pops.
And also, it’s a lot of male eye candy! I’m guessing y’all have a good time filming!
Scott: So often, women aren’t really getting what we deserve, so it’s a pleasure to see some hunks on the screen. Thank you, BET+!
Tell me about your initial impressions of each other and how you formed friendships on and off-camera.
Scott: When I met Michelle [Buteau], I pulled over to Ryan and said, “I don’t know about this one,” because Michelle was so funny and she was on, like fireworks. I had not seen a comedian like this since Robin Williams. It don’t stop; there’s always a new joke on the end of her tongue. Then we got in the car to head to the next location and [Michelle] just said, “Hey, what’s up?” and I was like, “Yeah, there we go.” There’s a balance in this genius. She is also human and lovely and caring and honest. Buteau: Some people, you just really know who your friends are. They can be there to celebrate with you all the time, but when you really need a hand to hold or a shoulder to cry on or someone to hug, it’s like, those are the people you want to be around. For me, that’s where we started. And so everything else was just like butter. I love it.
And Michelle [Mitchenor], you jumped in this season and it seems like you fit in right away.
Mitchenor: I was 100% embraced and it was just super cool. I was fresh into postpartum and me being a new mother and being around not only mothers, but also some of our male cast members who are husbands and whose wives recently had children, I was able to learn so much from them. Scott: Michelle Mitchenor came in like, “What’s up, let’s go,” and I’m like, okay, work hard, okay, work ethic, let’s do this. It’s really a joy.
As Michelle just noted, you’re also all moms who are playing moms. How do you put that into your characters?
Mitchenor: I had yet to play a mom on screen, so maybe God was just like, I’m gonna have you go through it first and then you’ll be able to add some real authenticity to it. Scott: In our personal lives, we have our children that we obviously miss, we have to walk away and allow somebody else to care for our children in our absence. That’s hard. We have relationships, we have issues and questions and problems sometimes with the people that are in our lives. And we’re able to talk to each other. The women that you’re seeing on television, they are women first, and then they’re moms and they’re business people. Those women on that show, that’s what they’re doing. Next, these 50 beautiful quotes from This Is Us will have you bawling! This interview has been edited for length and clarity
