Alison Brie clarifies alarming Entourage audition story

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Alison Brie has clarified remarks she made at the ATX Television Festival in Austin, Texas, on Sunday about her audition for the HBO series Entourage, which Brie said included a request for her to go topless.

“Re: Entourage — CLARIFICATION — I had a bikini top on UNDER my top. They didn’t ask me to get totally topless. Sorry to disappoint you!” Brie wrote.

Following an enthusiastic screening of her new series GLOW, Brie and costar Betty Gilpin talked frankly about how things may or may not have improved for actresses in Hollywood since the show’s 1980s setting.

“It has not changed that much,” said Brie. “The audition process has not changed that much.”

Both Brie and Gilpin made it clear that the GLOW casting environment was very much the opposite of some of their previous experiences, including Brie’s audition for Entourage. “Early in my career, I auditioned for three lines on an episode of Entourage that I had to go onin a bikini!” she said. “Or like shorts and the tiniest shorts. And they were like, ‘Okay, can you take your top off now?'”

Gilpin remembered auditioning for a room full of men, one of whom asked her to take her hair down after she completed the scene. GLOW casting director Jennifer Euston replied, “That’s gross.”

Brie also pointed to the lack of interesting roles for women. “I’ve gone through auditions for Marvel movies and auditioned a million times for roles with three lines and you are begging for them,” she shared. “And I’d be glad to get them! It’s brutal, it just is.”

This writer later tweeted about the stories from the panel, writing, “I won’t be able to unhear @alisonbrie Entourage experience.”

Euston replied, “Nor I – makes me sick there are producers who abuse their power & if there was a Casting Director present, they did nothing? Inexcusable.”

GLOW, which starts streaming June 23 on Netflix, tells the fictional origin story for the very real Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling league and is set amidst the big hair and bright spandex of the 1980s. It was created by Nurse Jackie‘s Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch and executive-produced by Orange Is the New Black‘sJenji Kohan.

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Brie and Gilpin were joined by Flahive and Euston for the pilot screening, which introduces Ruth (Brie) as a woman who decides to keep her acting ambitions alive by throwing in with a bunch of lovable misfits to start a wrestling team. Marc Maron, in a bit of pitch-perfect casting, plays the down-and-out director who leads the charge.

This post has been updated to include Brie’s comment.