Interview Melissa Benoist talks Portraying a Political Reporter in the Girls on the Bus

Interview: Melissa Benoist Talks Portraying a Political Reporter in ‘The Girls on the Bus’

Actress Melissa Benoist spent the 6 seasons as lead on the CW’s Supergirl as Kara Danvers until the show ended in 2021. Earlier this year, she marked her return to television in The Girls on the Bus on HBO Max.

It’s an ensemble-driven show about women political reporters on the campaign trail. The show details how journalists lives intersect on the trail, the inner workings of what really goes down in hotels (spoiler: trading information, some cocktails, and romance!), and the flawed and real lives of folks behind the news. The Girls on the Bus touches on clickbait journalism, how fragmented media is, and the fight for women’s rights, but it’s also fun, and there’s some joy to take in, especially when these reporters can get their frustrations out.

At the show’s center is Benoist, who plays Sadie, a reporter trying to prove her place in the industry after losing credibility. The highlight of Benoist’s performance is the mentor relationship between Sadie and editor Bruce Turner (played by the legendary Griffin Dunne and largely inspired by the late and great journalist David Carr.)

Even though reports broke that the show wasn’t getting a season 2, Benoist sees the silver lining in the show making it to a streamer in the first place.

“People believed in it, and then a group of smart people wrote the show about smart, multi-dimensional, multifaceted, very human women from different walks of life, including culturally different, different perspectives, and different generations. That, to me, is so miraculous that we were able to do a season like that on television.”

Melissa Benoist spoke to Awards Radar over the phone about making the show and why it is relevant now more than ever.

Niki Cruz: You did Supergirl for years, which I imagine is a mammoth show to put on. What was it like saying goodbye to Kara and hello to Sadie? Two completely different shows.

MB: I didn’t have to wear spandex, be on wires, or do any sort of punching. That was a stark contrast between the two jobs and a little bit of a relief after 6 years. It was so fun, and Supergirl was such a fantastic job, but getting to talk and be a human and not an alien who does stunts was really nice.

NC: I can imagine it’s almost like singing and dancing because your brain is split. You have to think about moving while you’re singing.

MB: Yeah, it’s just a different set of muscles. It’s like when you’re doing theater or a musical. It’s a very different experience.

NC: The episode order with The Girls on the Bus is smaller, so the stories must be tight. The chemistry has to be immediate. How was that experience for you?

MB: With this particular show, it was very easy and almost instantaneous how much the four of us women gelled and saw each other, respected each other, and then loved each other very, very quickly. The universe, in whatever way, brought the four of us together for this particular season in our lives for a reason. I’m still very close with them and see them. We shot the show in 2022, so it’s been years. The chemistry that you saw on camera was very real.

NC: You shot it in 2022, and two years later, it’s as relevant as ever because we’re still dealing with these issues. Women’s freedom and access are still on the line.

MB: Yeah, and as we were shooting, the season was the beginning of a post-Dobbs world. We have a storyline about abortion, and what’s unique about what we tried to do on our show was show a woman who knew the choice, and making that choice to get an abortion was not the agony.

The agony was that she was living in a post-Dobbs world where, while we were shooting in real-time, laws were changing state by state. The character was a woman traveling from state to state, and every state she was in had different rules, so finding the care she needed for the choice she knew she wanted to make was impossible. I love that they covered that’s as relevant as it is.

Niki Cruz: You don’t get to see the roadblocks of an abortion told on television. In general, television has come a long way in terms of telling a story about abortion. It didn’t feel like a PSA ad or a very special episode, which maybe 5-10, years ago, it might.

MB: Oh, absolutely. Our showrunner, Rina Mimoun, who spearheaded the story, had that experience on Everwood. She had “a very special episode” about an abortion. I’ve spoken with her about how that was not her experience this time, and that is progress. So that is a silver lining, but the fact that our rights are being taken away is horrific and depressing.

NC: Have you heard any response on social media about that episode in particular?

MB: Not just that storyline but I saw quite a few people that were upset with what we were doing and the way we were telling it. I think you’re gonna get that anywhere nowadays, but for the most part, the response I saw, especially about that episode, was positive.

NC: It’s nice to see a show with women from all walks of life coming together, bonding, and disagreeing, but they aren’t catty or hitting below the belt. They’re also not in storylines that service men.

MB: Yes, and that’s why it was miraculous that we were able to do what we were able to do. A group of smart women shepherded the show into development, stuck with many iterations and many different outlets that it went through before it ended up at HBO Max.

NC: In episode 6, when the bus breaks down, and you see how all of those reporters engage with each other, it was so fun to watch.

MB: It’s a claustrophobic environment, and just like when you’re on a road trip with close friends or family, people push your buttons, and these are all people coming from different ideologies, and they’re competitors in their field of work. I thought it was such a good idea when they told us about that episode existing as a standalone. All these rabid campaign reporters are stuck with each other for hours and hours and hours while a debate is going on, and they’re missing the news. It’s just brilliant. It is such a recipe for drama. I know that [author of Chasing Hillary, the basis of The Girls on the Bus] Amy Chozick was proud that we could include discourse on journalism and politics and reporting in the way we were.

NC: How was it filming on that bus? Because it’s an isolated location, and you’re in that one spot for hours and hours now.

MB: We had the real bus we would take to exterior locations, which didn’t have the greatest smell. And luckily, we weren’t on that one as often as on the bus on stage. We had a bus we could dissemble and take apart to get the camera in, but we were on a stage for hours and hours and hours and hours at a time. I think it did start to feel like the monotony that you feel on the campaign trail, from what I’ve heard from Amy and other reporters I spoke to.

NC: I love that The Girls on the Bus shows journalists aren’t a monolith. It explores the challenges of being a journalist in the current times, cancel culture, and the clickbait era of journalism. Having done the show, do you have a new perspective on journalists?

MB: I have such a newfound respect because I did not consider what went into getting the news to the public. Now that I have more of an idea and have learned a lot, especially about campaign reporting, I can’t tell you how much respect I have for journalists. Getting the truth out there, especially like you were saying now in 2024 when the truth is, sadly, a word that’s not taken seriously or defined differently by different people, is just so much more important than it ever has been. It’s so pivotal to the health of this country.

NC: Switching gears. There are a ton of light moments in the show. You do get to have fun. Sadie’s a big daydreamer, and we see how those daydreams play out throughout the season. I have a favorite one as a viewer, but which was your favorite to film?

MB: [Laughs] Which one was your favorite?

NC : It has to be Scott Foley dancing and stripping to Ginuwine’s Pony.

MB: [Laughs] That one was very fun for me to watch in person because of how uncomfortable Scott was. I do love all the Hunter S. Thompson ones because PJ [Sosko], who played Hunter S. Thompson was just really in it, and it always felt really silly. [Pauses] Yeah, I think it might have been Pony, but I did like the daydream where Sadie beats up the guy who won’t give her abortion pills. That one was satisfying.

NC: You also got to work with the legendary Griffin Dunne. To this day, I still remember him from the 1991 movie My Girl. What was it like working with him?

MB: [Gasps] Oh my God, I forgot he was in that movie! He was a dream. He’s so brilliant, and his pedigree is so impressive. That was a cool meta moment that we had this person who happens to be a really prolific and fantastic actor with such a storied career as an actor, but who also comes from a family of journalistic royalty. Joan Didion for an aunt and his life experiences, his stories are filled with Hollywood royalty. I just ate up every word he said, and I think his portrayal of Bruce was so heartfelt and genuine and a pivotal relationship for the show. I don’t think it would have resonated as much as it did if it weren’t Griffin.

NC: What’s next for you?

MB: I have an almost-four-year-old, so that takes up quite a bit of my time. I’m soaking in these little young toddler years. It’s wonderful to watch him grow, but I have a production company and am developing things alongside Warner Brothers. They’ve been wonderful partners of mine for a long time since I joined Supergirl. So I’ve got some things in development, and hopefully, I’m able to tell some stories that I shepherd into existence from the ground up, and that’s what’s on my plate.

You can stream The Girls on the Bus on Max.

Interview: Melissa Benoist Talks Portraying a Political Reporter in ‘The Girls on the Bus’

Actress Melissa Benoist spent the 6 seasons as lead on the CW’s Supergirl as Kara Danvers until the show ended in 2021. Earlier this year, she marked her return to television in The Girls on the Bus on HBO Max.

It’s an ensemble-driven show about women political reporters on the campaign trail. The show details how journalists lives intersect on the trail, the inner workings of what really goes down in hotels (spoiler: trading information, some cocktails, and romance!), and the flawed and real lives of folks behind the news. The Girls on the Bus touches on clickbait journalism, how fragmented media is, and the fight for women’s rights, but it’s also fun, and there’s some joy to take in, especially when these reporters can get their frustrations out.

At the show’s center is Benoist, who plays Sadie, a reporter trying to prove her place in the industry after losing credibility. The highlight of Benoist’s performance is the mentor relationship between Sadie and editor Bruce Turner (played by the legendary Griffin Dunne and largely inspired by the late and great journalist David Carr.)

Even though reports broke that the show wasn’t getting a season 2, Benoist sees the silver lining in the show making it to a streamer in the first place.

“People believed in it, and then a group of smart people wrote the show about smart, multi-dimensional, multifaceted, very human women from different walks of life, including culturally different, different perspectives, and different generations. That, to me, is so miraculous that we were able to do a season like that on television.”

Melissa Benoist spoke to Awards Radar over the phone about making the show and why it is relevant now more than ever.

Niki Cruz: You did Supergirl for years, which I imagine is a mammoth show to put on. What was it like saying goodbye to Kara and hello to Sadie? Two completely different shows.

MB: I didn’t have to wear spandex, be on wires, or do any sort of punching. That was a stark contrast between the two jobs and a little bit of a relief after 6 years. It was so fun, and Supergirl was such a fantastic job, but getting to talk and be a human and not an alien who does stunts was really nice.

NC: I can imagine it’s almost like singing and dancing because your brain is split. You have to think about moving while you’re singing.

MB: Yeah, it’s just a different set of muscles. It’s like when you’re doing theater or a musical. It’s a very different experience.

NC: The episode order with The Girls on the Bus is smaller, so the stories must be tight. The chemistry has to be immediate. How was that experience for you?

MB: With this particular show, it was very easy and almost instantaneous how much the four of us women gelled and saw each other, respected each other, and then loved each other very, very quickly. The universe, in whatever way, brought the four of us together for this particular season in our lives for a reason. I’m still very close with them and see them. We shot the show in 2022, so it’s been years. The chemistry that you saw on camera was very real.

NC: You shot it in 2022, and two years later, it’s as relevant as ever because we’re still dealing with these issues. Women’s freedom and access are still on the line.

MB: Yeah, and as we were shooting, the season was the beginning of a post-Dobbs world. We have a storyline about abortion, and what’s unique about what we tried to do on our show was show a woman who knew the choice, and making that choice to get an abortion was not the agony.

The agony was that she was living in a post-Dobbs world where, while we were shooting in real-time, laws were changing state by state. The character was a woman traveling from state to state, and every state she was in had different rules, so finding the care she needed for the choice she knew she wanted to make was impossible. I love that they covered that’s as relevant as it is.

Niki Cruz: You don’t get to see the roadblocks of an abortion told on television. In general, television has come a long way in terms of telling a story about abortion. It didn’t feel like a PSA ad or a very special episode, which maybe 5-10, years ago, it might.

MB: Oh, absolutely. Our showrunner, Rina Mimoun, who spearheaded the story, had that experience on Everwood. She had “a very special episode” about an abortion. I’ve spoken with her about how that was not her experience this time, and that is progress. So that is a silver lining, but the fact that our rights are being taken away is horrific and depressing.

NC: Have you heard any response on social media about that episode in particular?

MB: Not just that storyline but I saw quite a few people that were upset with what we were doing and the way we were telling it. I think you’re gonna get that anywhere nowadays, but for the most part, the response I saw, especially about that episode, was positive.

NC: It’s nice to see a show with women from all walks of life coming together, bonding, and disagreeing, but they aren’t catty or hitting below the belt. They’re also not in storylines that service men.

MB: Yes, and that’s why it was miraculous that we were able to do what we were able to do. A group of smart women shepherded the show into development, stuck with many iterations and many different outlets that it went through before it ended up at HBO Max.

NC: In episode 6, when the bus breaks down, and you see how all of those reporters engage with each other, it was so fun to watch.

MB: It’s a claustrophobic environment, and just like when you’re on a road trip with close friends or family, people push your buttons, and these are all people coming from different ideologies, and they’re competitors in their field of work. I thought it was such a good idea when they told us about that episode existing as a standalone. All these rabid campaign reporters are stuck with each other for hours and hours and hours while a debate is going on, and they’re missing the news. It’s just brilliant. It is such a recipe for drama. I know that [author of Chasing Hillary, the basis of The Girls on the Bus] Amy Chozick was proud that we could include discourse on journalism and politics and reporting in the way we were.

NC: How was it filming on that bus? Because it’s an isolated location, and you’re in that one spot for hours and hours now.

MB: We had the real bus we would take to exterior locations, which didn’t have the greatest smell. And luckily, we weren’t on that one as often as on the bus on stage. We had a bus we could dissemble and take apart to get the camera in, but we were on a stage for hours and hours and hours and hours at a time. I think it did start to feel like the monotony that you feel on the campaign trail, from what I’ve heard from Amy and other reporters I spoke to.

NC: I love that The Girls on the Bus shows journalists aren’t a monolith. It explores the challenges of being a journalist in the current times, cancel culture, and the clickbait era of journalism. Having done the show, do you have a new perspective on journalists?

MB: I have such a newfound respect because I did not consider what went into getting the news to the public. Now that I have more of an idea and have learned a lot, especially about campaign reporting, I can’t tell you how much respect I have for journalists. Getting the truth out there, especially like you were saying now in 2024 when the truth is, sadly, a word that’s not taken seriously or defined differently by different people, is just so much more important than it ever has been. It’s so pivotal to the health of this country.

NC: Switching gears. There are a ton of light moments in the show. You do get to have fun. Sadie’s a big daydreamer, and we see how those daydreams play out throughout the season. I have a favorite one as a viewer, but which was your favorite to film?

MB: [Laughs] Which one was your favorite?

NC : It has to be Scott Foley dancing and stripping to Ginuwine’s Pony.

MB: [Laughs] That one was very fun for me to watch in person because of how uncomfortable Scott was. I do love all the Hunter S. Thompson ones because PJ [Sosko], who played Hunter S. Thompson was just really in it, and it always felt really silly. [Pauses] Yeah, I think it might have been Pony, but I did like the daydream where Sadie beats up the guy who won’t give her abortion pills. That one was satisfying.

NC: You also got to work with the legendary Griffin Dunne. To this day, I still remember him from the 1991 movie My Girl. What was it like working with him?

MB: [Gasps] Oh my God, I forgot he was in that movie! He was a dream. He’s so brilliant, and his pedigree is so impressive. That was a cool meta moment that we had this person who happens to be a really prolific and fantastic actor with such a storied career as an actor, but who also comes from a family of journalistic royalty. Joan Didion for an aunt and his life experiences, his stories are filled with Hollywood royalty. I just ate up every word he said, and I think his portrayal of Bruce was so heartfelt and genuine and a pivotal relationship for the show. I don’t think it would have resonated as much as it did if it weren’t Griffin.

NC: What’s next for you?

MB: I have an almost-four-year-old, so that takes up quite a bit of my time. I’m soaking in these little young toddler years. It’s wonderful to watch him grow, but I have a production company and am developing things alongside Warner Brothers. They’ve been wonderful partners of mine for a long time since I joined Supergirl. So I’ve got some things in development, and hopefully, I’m able to tell some stories that I shepherd into existence from the ground up, and that’s what’s on my plate.

You can stream The Girls on the Bus on Max.

[This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.][This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.]