‘GLOW’ Star Kimmy Gatewood on Directing for Netflix: ‘You Have to Advocate for Yourself’

“I always like to think of the release date as a wedding, and right now we’re still engaged, we’re getting ready to go, super excited, getting my dress ready! It’s just having been an actor for so long, it’s incredible to share your work with a big number of people,” Kimmy Gatewood says in the days leading up to “Good on Paper,” her feature film directorial debut, hitting Netflix. And now a week after its premiere, the wedding has gone off without a hitch, and the honeymoon is in full swing. 

Still sitting strong in the streamer’s top 10 films of the week, “Good on Paper” stars and is written by standup heavyweight Iliza Shlesinger, who pulled inspiration from her own romantic trevails for the script. She plays Andrea Singer, a standup comedian who begins dating the nerdy-but-charming Dennis (Ryan Hansen) just to learn that he seems too good to be true—because he is. Co-starring Margaret Cho as Shlesinger’s best friend who sees the catfishy writing on the wall, the story first drew Gatewood in as not only a fan of the comedic pedigree involved, but as a filmmaker who looks “for stories about strong, funny, complicated women.” And if those stories are based on fact, even better. 

“There’s nothing I love more than a true story, because I started my directing career on stage doing solo shows, taking people’s stories and turning them into half-hour shows,” Gatewood explains, “so this was very much in my wheelhouse.” This project had her leaning further on those theater experience, too, considering the rate at which the raucous comedy was filmed: “Oftentimes, you don’t have a lot of time or money, you’re just using your creative muscles and leaning back on your theater days of, ‘OK, how do we make this work?’ ” she adds. “They call me scrappy!”

The longtime actor, who is perhaps best known for her work as Stacey on Netflix’s beloved “GLOW,” began directing regularly in addition to performing about five years ago with series like “Junketeers” and “Hyperlinked” and more recently with one-offs for “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” “The Baby-Sitters Club,” and this year’s Peacock hit “Girls5Eva.” When it comes to the sorts of actors she likes to work with most, whether in front of or behind the camera, Gatewood relates that nothing excites her more than a strong, bold choice. 

“There’s nothing better than walking into a scene or watching a scene where someone makes a strong choice because then you can react in a certain way,” she says. “There’s nothing harder than when you walk into a scene with someone who is waiting to be told what to do.

“As an actor,” she adds, “we often don’t trust that we actually are a very important part of the process. A director, a producer, and a casting director seems like they all have roles, and an actor doesn’t give themselves enough credit for being a very vital part. An important part of the job is to come in, know your lines, know your marks, but also make a bold choice that can be adjusted if we need to. It’s like an improv. Come in with a bold choice, but don’t be afraid to throw it away and just react to what’s happening in front of you.”

Reflecting on her own experience in the industry, Gatewood says the idea of becoming a “multihyphenate,” as it were, was never a strategic goal—“I just wanted to create and it was just something that compelled me. I wanted to do it, so I would just do it.” So at the end of the day, the best advice she can give other performers who want to make their own work is simply to remember that if no one is going to hand it to you, you have to hand it to yourself. 

“I started standup where I had to bring people in—I had to stand on 42nd Street [in New York City] and bark to get tourists to come to my show. That [impulse] followed me around a little in my career,” she remembers. “You have to advocate for yourself. You have to believe in yourself. Even if you’re feeling insecure in your work, you have to be bold enough to put it out there and get it in front of people…. [And] don’t be afraid to ask for help along the way.”