‘Étoile' creators on ‘secret weapon' choreographer Marguerite Derricks

Yahoo

09-06-2025

If there's a common thread to the Palladino-verse (beyond the fast-talking), it's dance — the actors in shows created by Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino glide across our screens as if performing on a stage, as do the cameras tracking them. That's credit to choreographer Marguerite Derricks, who's been part of the Palladino pack for years — but with Étoile, she gets to strut her stuff. 'I've done a lot,' she says, referring to her long career, 'and I finally feel like Étoile is my thing.'
Gold Derby: Marguerite, tell me your origin story. How did you first connect with Dan and Amy?
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Marguerite Derricks: I first connected with Dan and Amy on the TV show Bunheads. That was our first. Étoile is our fourth show together. So we did Bunheads, which was heaven, absolute heaven. And then they wrote a bunch of dance in the Gilmore Girls reboot. And then Amy reached out to me after the pilot of Maisel was released and told me to look at it because she wanted it to leap and swirl around the screen. And then here we are with Étoile.
Dan Palladino: And we have eight more that we're going to do, Marguerite, so get ready, get some sleep. We have eight more shows that we're going to do together over the next 20 years.
You didn't realize this was a lifelong contract.
Derricks: I'm ready, I'm always ready. I always have two suitcases in my front room because it's always jumping on a plane and I would do it in a hot second for Amy and Dan.
Palladino: Marguerite has a go bag for fires and for us. I really appreciate that.
Amy Sherman-Palladino: We call Marguerite our secret weapon because it's so deeply obvious what her value is, but the thing about Maisel is she did so much that people don't even realize. Obviously, when we got into like the Wolford or the strip clubs or the Catskills dance number, that's obvious to people that that is choreography and that a choreographer came in and did that. But I did a big shot of Rachel walking down what was supposed to be Christopher Street in the Village, and that was all staged and choreographed. We did a whole thing through the garment district and that was all staged and choreographed, even though it wasn't necessarily jetés. Marguerite would come in and anything where we had group scenes or movement because our camera moved so much. We needed to be able to have somebody who had that eye and who could keep an eye on things, especially in these big group numbers. She was seeing something that we weren't seeing. So she's been a part of us, whether you knew it or not, all the way through Maisel. And so now on Étoile, it's front and center.
So what did it mean to you to finally get to a show that's all dance?
Derricks: Well, the first time Amy whispered in my ear, I think it was two years before we even started, she whispered ballet and Paris into my ear. And I lost my stuff then! It's a dream. My son said to me a couple of years ago, 'I don't think you've had your thing yet.' I've done a lot. I think Étoile is my thing. I really feel like it's my thing. I started off as a young girl in ballet and my dream was to be a ballet dancer, but I'm short and that didn't happen for me. I played a ballet dancer on Fame, one of my first jobs, but I never got to fulfill that. I really felt like I got to fulfill that dream. It started with Bunheads, but really escalated on Étoile. And to work with those world-class dancers, for any choreographer, it was just a dream.
How did you all work together in deciding what ballets you were going to include? I read that it was 29 ballets altogether.
Sherman-Palladino: Wow. Was it? Holy moly. That was a lot! We should keep track of that s--t. One of the greatest things that I think sets her apart from a lot of choreographers is she really understands story and she understands comedy and she understands camera. She can do any beautiful dance in any style that you want her to do. And she can do it in a hot second, but it's different to do something that is feeding the story and is pushing the story forward or is pushing the comedy forward. She'll have worked with 20 dancers, and then Dan and I will come in and we'll go, "Yeah, that's great, can you turn it all sideways?" And she's like, "Yes, all right." And in five minutes, General Patton has redone the entire thing. And it's exactly what you need for camera. It's terrifying to watch because it's like, "OK, where do I go?" But it's that understanding of story.
Every time we put a piece of dance into Étoile, it needs to push the narrative forward or it needs to say something about the story. We didn't want to be just a show that stopped for a pretty ballet. So if you're going to see a Tobias ballet, Gideon Glick's character, the ballet had to say something about what Tobias was going through or what he was pushing or what his style was, which tells you who he is as a character. So it's not enough just to do a cool ballet. Marguerite had to step back and think, what motions feed Tobias's brain? What rhythms are in his head? He's a guy who has his headphones on, so he's actually listening to music other than the music that is in his head that he's choreographing to. So what is that madness all about? And so what comes out as these really great, cool ballets, the thought process that went into them was actually much more intense than 'Let's do something with tutus.'
Even the phone call in the pilot, which is the union guy talking to Genevieve as they're in the phone negotiating whether they're going to go and strike or not, we needed to see something in the background of what they were going to lose of who these dancers were, of what they were striking for, of what the point of this was. So we needed something that was motion and the dancers could come on and off and on and off and be part of it because it was about their story. So even the smallest little piece of dance, the discussions were quite elaborate just in terms of what was the story it was feeding into.
Marguerite, how did you weave your dance into the story?
Derricks: Amy and Dan, they put it all in the script. For a choreographer, I've been doing this for a million years, and usually it says, 'And they dance.' There's nothing there, and they dance because people don't know what they want. They don't know how important dance is and how it can drive the story forward. So for me, it's really, really easy. I love when they challenge me. I love when I see those marbles coming across the floor and they want to change something around because the direction is always there. It's always on the page. Amy and Dan always lay it out. I wouldn't want to do dance just for dance anymore. Dance driving the story is just magic. It's really magic. I feel bad for any choreographer that does not get to work with Amy and Dan.
Palladino: Balanchine, sorry, dude, you are out of luck.
Is there a moment that you're proudest of, given the amount of dance that's in it?
Derricks: Gosh, I couldn't even say. I can't stop watching the show because I am just so blown away by what we all did and how beautiful it is.
Sherman-Palladino: I'll blow Marguerite's horn for her. I'll blow it for you, young lady. We had a dance in the pilot that was supposed to introduce Cheyenne as a dancer and a personal dance that was emotional. And we did it and it was fine, but none of us were really, really happy with it. Our time was ticking, and we were coming to the end of our shoot. And Marguerite and I looked at each other and it's like, we need something else. We're telling people how great Cheyenne is. We've seen Romeo and Juliet, but that was really from Jack's point of view and how he viewed her. We need the audience to meet Cheyenne the dancer. And I threw her 'Big in Japan,' this Tom Waits song that's been in my head, in a hot second and she came up with this thing. I don't know if it was even overnight that she came up with this dance that tells you everything you need to know about Cheyenne, a woman who can't channel her emotions or frustrations in any other way but dance. The other dance we could have left in, and it would have been fine. But there was something about this moment that elevated this character so that you got her completely, and that was me throwing her a piece of music at the last minute and saying, 'What do think about this?' And Constance came in, who's Cheyenne's dance double, and she killed it. I said to McConkey, 'Strap on your Steadicam, let's go.' Marguerite and I dragged him around the room and we got that thing in record time, and it's exactly what we needed.
Marguerite, how much of Tobias is based on you?
Derricks: We became one! Gideon and I became one. Even reading Tobias, I auditioned eight pillows when I moved to New York for [Étoile]. All of his quirkiness, I just connected with. Gideon would come to rehearsals and he would stalk me and I would stalk him. So I always tell Gideon that we literally became one on the show. For me, Tobias is my biggest voice in the show. It's where I really got to strut my stuff and do something different with ballet that I've been wanting to do for a long time.
Sherman-Palladino: 100 percent. It was the hardest thing to do because you're creating a character through dance. Because Tobias is all about the dance. He can't talk at all. He's the worst people person on the face of the earth. Maybe even worse than Cheyenne. So his whole vocabulary is dance. So if the dance didn't fit who we were trying to tell the audience he was, the character wouldn't have resonated at all.
Watch our other recent Dream Team stories featuring Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino, plus the two creators with star and cinematographer .
This article and video are presented by Prime Video.
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