‘Étoile’ Star Gideon Glick Talks Tobias, Choreography and Creativity

Reading early scripts for new ballet drama series “Étoile,” Gideon Glick had a hunch that one of the characters was meant for him. 

Show creators Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino, of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and “Gilmore Girls” fame, had already written the first two episodes when they invited Glick onboard as part of the writers’ room. “I saw the character breakdown and I saw Tobias and I thought, ‘Oh, this feels like me, or at least how they perceived me,’” he adds.  ”And every time they talked about the character, they would gesture to me, but they hadn’t offered me the part.”

The show is set in the ballet world of New York and Paris, tracking the personalities that keep the dance companies going from dancers and creatives, to the administrators and benefactors. Glick stars as the genius but quirky choreographer Tobias, who ends up in Paris as part of an international talent “swap” between two ballet companies, fictionalized versions of the American Ballet Theatre and the Paris Opera Ballet.

Glick, describing the Palladinos now as “family,” first connected with the Emmy-winning duo during a pandemic-era Zoom audition for “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” “I remember at the end of it, Amy said: ‘God, you’re weird.’ And I immediately was like, ‘Oh — that’s so good. That’s good. She gets me; I feel seen.’ And so I think that’s obviously something that she likes about me,” says Glick, who went on to star as the magician Alfie in the fourth and fifth seasons of “Maisel.”

“As a result, Tobias is a very strange creature,” he adds. “So that’s also why I felt immediately like, oh, I think this is my part.” A month after working on the show as a writer, with approval from Amazon, they officially offered Glick the part. 

Although Glick’s portrayal of Tobias was already grounded in helping create the character’s personality on the page, the physical side of the character proved less familiar, although he felt like he had a “good peripheral understanding of the world.”

“I have a large theater background, but ballet is a different beast,” says Glick, who immersed himself in the world of ballet while working on “Étoile” by taking classes, going to performances, watching documentaries and reading books. “I came up in the theater. I’d done plays, I’d done musicals. I majored in art history in college. With the movie ‘Maestro,’ I got to research a lot about classical music and opera. So ballet sort of felt like this last performing arts form that I didn’t know anything about.”

For inspiration, Glick looked to choreographers including Ulysses Dove, Paul Taylor and Bill T. Jones, who the actor had worked with during the original production of “Spring Awakening.”  

”Bill actually was a big, big inspiration,” says Glick, who made his Broadway debut in the musical in the late 2000s. “Bill T. Jones is a living legend of the modern dance world. But he’s also very blunt. He’s very precise and he is very eccentric and he has his own language. Immediately when I started reading Tobias, Bill just jumped out at me,” Glick says. “And then Christopher Wheeldon is a friend of mine, so he allowed me to shadow him, see him choreograph. Which was the greatest gift: to see a true master at his work and get to see him actually mount a piece was just so illuminating.”

Tobias, always wearing headphones, is hailed as an elusive creative genius in the show. Although often socially inept and abrasive when interacting with dancers, the show makes the case for creative talent as a redeeming attribute for many character traits. Glick views Tobias as an introvert who suffers for his art, but the suffering is rooted in a deep well of care. 

“It’s a world where the stakes are so high because it’s an art form that people want to keep alive. And as a result, people care about it so much,” Glick says. “So for them it is life or death. And especially for my character,” he adds. “Everybody wants to be the best that they can be. And so as a result, I find that the stakes are so compelling.”

Glick appreciated that the Palladino-approach to depicting the ballet world was less macabre and Goth — there’s no murder — and more about showing the singular personalities at the top of their field. “I mean, there’s still drama because it’s about artists and artists are insane,” says Glick, describing the process of filming the show as a “livewire.” There’s an unhinged prima ballerina, the fully dedicated company directors, and overly involved underwriter whose fortune, obtained through questionable means, keeps the whole spectacle running.

Prime Video ordered two seasons of the show, so it’s likely that the characters will return to the stage soon enough. Offscreen, Glick is hopeful that he’ll also get to head back there. “It’s been five years since I’ve done anything on stage, and I started to do some readings in the past year and I forgot just how much I miss it,” he says.

In the meantime, Glick has continued to hone his voice on the page, working on his own writing projects, including a film adaptation of a book that he’s currently trying to sell. And beyond that, he’s feeling fortunate that his career is allowing him to explore more of the performing arts, be it music composition with Bradley Cooper’s film “Maestro” or getting to take ballet class as a 36-year-old for “Étoile.”

Glick recalls a memorable moment on the “Étoile” set, a take where everybody in the room — dancers, actors, crew — were quiet with the exception of pianist Our Lady J, who played an excerpt from “Sleeping Beauty.” 

“We’re all just dead silent listening to Our Lady J masterfully play the piano for two or three takes,” Glick says. “And I thought, I don’t think I could have a better job in the world.”