Girls5Eva is Peacock’s latest streaming hit. The original series on the NBC streaming service stars Sara Bareilles (Broadway’s Waitress), Renée Elise Goldsberry (The Good Wife, Broadway’s Hamilton), Paula Pell (A.P. Bio, SNL) and Busy Philipps (Cougar Town), as the remaining members of a 90s girl group. After an artist samples one of their biggest hits, the group decides to reunite and give their musical dreams another shot.
In the fourth episode of the series, Dawn (Bareilles) takes writing their own next hit into her hands. She decides to follow the Dolly Parton-method of songwriting… by starting writing at 3 a.m. and fasting during the session. In her songwriting stupor, Dawn sees Parton in a vision and goes into a raving songwriting fit.
In the episode, however, Parton doesn’t play herself. Though the show did reach out to the Tennessee native for a cameo role, the episode filmed during COVID-19 and they were unsure if the country icon could get to set. Instead, executive producer Tina Fey stepped into the high heels and puts on a Parton portrayal unlike any other.
“We had a table read with the character of Dolly Parton, and Tina played her in the table read, and she [was] so funny. She’s hilarious,” show creator Meredith Scardino told TVLine. “Not a shocker that she was amazing. Tina was so good in this table read, I was like, ‘Would you ever do this?’ and she was kind enough to do it. She also was such a great voice mimic. I thought her work was incredible. And by the way, it didn’t have to be perfect. It’s a hallucination of Dolly Parton, and we felt like that was the leeway to let someone else play Dolly Parton… I loved that Tina had a couple lines of Dolly Parton dialogue or song that would kind of get her into character before the camera rolled. She would always just go like [in a Dolly Parton accent], ‘Yawn and stretch,’ [which] would be how she would get back into that voice.”
Fey’s impression of Parton was certainly unforgettable and likely marks her first (but hopefully not last) time channeling the singer.
“As far as I’m aware, that was the first time she’s done it,” recalled Scardino. “And then, coincidentally, a week after we shot that, Melissa Villaseñor on SNL did a Dolly Parton impression, and we were like, “What’s happening?! Everyone’s doing Dolly!’”
Though Fey donned Parton’s famous blonde wig that day, she kept her producer hat nearby, offering thoughts and critiques as they filmed the episode. Working as Fey while looking like Parton kept the cast and crew laughing all day.
“It was difficult to get through some of things [because] she’s so funny. Another thing that’s sort of funny is she’s in this pretty elaborate getup, but she’s still Tina Fey. She’s got producer opinions and gives you a few notes or something, looking like that, [which] was pretty funny. There was a lot of stuff that was hard to get through, but wearing a mask and a shield does keep you from distracting people with your laughter. But our actors are very good at keeping their game face on, which was impressive.”
Watch Girls5Eva on Peacock, streaming now.