Melissa Benoist interview: ‘The Girls on the Bus’

Even executives at Max seemed sad to end “The Girls on the Bus” after its first and only season on the streaming platform.

“While Max will not be moving forward with a second season of ‘The Girls on the Bus,’ we are grateful to have partnered with immensely talented Amy Chozick, Julie Plec, Rina Mimoun, as well as the teams at Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television,” a representative for Max said in a statement last month. “We are so proud of this powerful story of found family and the celebration of journalism, in all its forms. We thank them and our unrivaled cast for all their incredible work and collaboration.”

The show’s lead and producer, Melissa Benoist, also felt that sense of satisfaction over what was accomplished with the 10-episode drama series.

“I am so saddened that we don’t get to tell more of the story. But nothing’s going to take away the pride that I feel for what we were able to do,” Benoist tells Gold Derby in an exclusive video interview. “We were able to take a group of smart women and tell stories about smart women, and that is not nothing – still, even in 2004. That was a massive success and it was so great that we were able to do that. And the experience of making the show was so joyful for me and I know that I was not alone in feeling that. It was such a wonderful experience. The process was so enjoyable. That’s going to be what I take with me.”

Created by Chozick and Plec and inspired by Chozick’s 2018 memoir “Chasing Hillary,” “The Girls on the Bus” follows four reporters from different outlets, generations, and ideologies, and tracks their growing friendships against the backdrop of a presidential campaign. Benoist plays Sadie McCarthy, a journalist at the New York Sentinel, the show’s fictionalized version of the New York Times (where Chozick worked).

“For the most part, in the writers’ room, Amy primarily wrote Sadie’s dialogue, and her voice was just so synonymous with Sadie McCarthy but Sadie is not Amy whatsoever. But she does have Amy’s voice. So that wasn’t really difficult to draw inspiration from Amy to play her,” Benoist says about her inspirations for the show’s lead character. “But I also spoke to Ashley Parker from MSNBC and The Washington Post. She’s this formidable reporter and journalist who’s been on many campaign trails and is a seasoned pro. And really, because Sadie kind of romanticizes this bygone era of journalism, when it was the boys’ club – 1970s, Hunter S. Thompson-era – I took a lot of inspiration from the books that I read that Amy recommended to me: ‘The Boys on the Bus’ and ‘Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail.’ That informed a lot of my approach toward the character.”

As an actor, Benoist originally broke out on “Glee” and later starred as the title character on “Supergirl” – all while playing supporting roles in high-profile films like the Oscar-winning “Whiplash” and “Patriots Day.” But “The Girls on the Bus” provided Benoist with a unique experience, she says, in part because of the camaraderie amongst the ensemble.

“I’ve never really worked on a show where everyone was so simpatico directly from the get-go,” she says of her fellow co-stars, Carla Gugino, Christina Elmore, and Natasha Behnam. “We all just got along really well immediately, and then of course, it deepened and matured as we made the show. But the four of us women specifically just loved each other. We just saw something in each other and we’re really birds of a feather. We’re still really good friends and I know that you probably hear that all the time. But this is completely genuine. We really had that connection and that chemistry that you see in the show, which I’ve heard a lot from people when I hear that they’ve watched it. They’re always like, ‘Oh, you guys seem to really get along?’ Well, yes.”

played a superhero who moonlights as a reporter on “Supergirl,” but “The Girls on the Bus” provided the actress with a front-row seat to the profession and its challenges.

“The Girls on the Bus” takes place during a fictional election cycle, but the show debuted during what promises to be a contentious election year with the vote for president looming in November. Yet even during this polarized era of politics, “The Girls on the Bus” dared to show people on opposite sides of the political spectrum having good-faith debates and even being friends.

“That was one of the biggest goals we had in creating the show because I think that was very true to Amy’s experience on the trail,” Benoist says of the approach. “She might be on the bus with a Fox News correspondent and have completely different ideologies and come from a completely different background, but they’re able to work together. They’re able to find common ground, they’re able to be friends. They’re able to maybe change each other’s mind every once in a while. To me, that was one of the best parts of making this show and what I thought our writers did really well. They exemplified and included a lot of different diverse voices in this particular arena.”

In no episode was that more apparent than in the show’s eighth episode, “Life is a Highway,” when Sadie must travel across state lines to receive abortion pills. The journalist who agrees to drive Sadie is Kimberlyn (Elmore), who is conservative and pro-life.

“It was important to me that it wasn’t this agonizing thing that she had to do,” Benoist says of Sadie’s choice and journey. “The agony was that the care was not available in a straightforward way. She had made the decision and the clarity was there, and I think that’s true for a lot of women that go through something like an abortion. Once you make the decision, it’s your choice. But something else I’m so proud of in that episode was that Kimberlyn, who is not pro-choice, takes her to do it. And I think that exemplifies that ideal. Just because you wouldn’t make the same choice doesn’t mean that your friend who you love, who you see is going through something, isn’t allowed to make the right choice for herself.”

All episodes of “The Girls on the Bus” are streaming on Max. The show is eligible in the drama categories at the 2024 Emmys.