She may play the fiery slugger “Greta Gill” on the empowering A League of Their Own series on Prime Video, but actor D’Arcy Carden is the one scoring big right now. Remaining the #1 show on the video streamer in the U.S. since premiering back on August 12, this fictional episodic re-imagining of the hit 1992 film A League of Their Own centers around the very real group of female baseball players who boldly stepped up to the plate during World War II, defying gender norms during a time when tradition was not just encouraged but expected.
“It feels so good, not just because I love this show and it was so special to make it,” Carden, 42, tells me when reacting to the feedback she has received about the series so far. “We made it a long time ago. We shot the pilot back before the pandemic and then we shot the show last summer, so we’ve been just like excitedly holding onto it. I started to get anxious about it and it has just been such a nice relief and so lovely that people seem to be into it.”
Carden goes on to tell me that the response she has received about her performance as “Greta” from viewers within the LGBTQ community has been a bit surreal, saying it’s not something you can ever expect but a responsibility she does not take lightly.
In honor of the release of “A League of Their Own,” we had Abbi Jacobson, D’Arcy Carden, Chanté Adams, Roberta Colindrez, and Priscilla Delgado sit down with BuzzFeed and play a game of Who’s Who! So…who does a spot-on impression of Abbi? Who’s actually a real-life pro at baseball? And who’s accidentally ghosting the groupchat? Watch to find out!
I have updated the photo gallery with 24 HQ images of D’Arcy Carden from the most recent events she has attended in the past 2 weeks!
Click on the links below to be taken to the photos.
- D’Arcy Carden Fan > Public Appearances > From 2022 > August 10th – Taping “Today”
- D’Arcy Carden Fan > TV Appearances > Talk Shows > From 2022 > August 9th – The Late Show With Stephen Colbert (Production Stills)
- D’Arcy Carden Fan > TV Appearances > Talk Shows > From 2022 > August 10th – Today (Production Stills)
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 1 of A League of Their Own.]
A League of Their Own may be inspired by the true story that inspired the 1992 film, but there are quite a few changes in tone as the series hinges on protagonist Carson’s (Abbi Jacobson) search for herself and identity.
When it comes to playing Greta, a confident, statuesque athlete who joins the Rockford Peaches in the Prime Video series adaptation of A League of Their Own, there’s a certain kind of swagger required. And for D’Arcy Carden, the only way to bring that to the screen was to channel George Clooney.
“Playing cool and confident and sexy is really hard,” the actress, who first garnered breakout attention thanks to her Emmy-nominated turn as Janet on The Good Place, tells ET. “It’s really fun and easy to play goofy and weird and silly. Like, all those things that I love playing and they are in my wheelhouse or my go-tos, and almost nothing about Greta is in my wheelhouse.”
So, in order to embody Greta, who not only is introduced as a Mae-like character first played by Madonna in the 1992 Penny Marshall film but also ends up seducing Carson (series co-creator and longtime friend Abbi Jacobson), Carden kept thinking about the award-winning actor who is known for his performances as well as his public demeanor.
“He’s sort of Greta’s North Star. Like, when I needed to channel some confidence or just some cool swag or whatever, I would just think of George Clooney in Ocean’s 11 or just his vibe,” she says, while noting that he’s not the most obvious choice for the period drama. “I know that’s not some hero from the 1940s… No, I was, like, thinking of 1990s George Clooney.”
That said, it worked for Carden, who shines in her biggest TV role yet following four seasons on The Good Place and her recurring part on the HBO series Barry. While the series also stars Jacobson, Chanté Adams, Roberta Colindrez, Molly Ephraim and Melanie Field, who plays Greta’s bestie, Jo, it’s Carden who runs away with the show.
While speaking to ET about season 1, Carden discusses what it was like going on Greta’s journey, especially as the player navigated her own feelings about being out and deciding not to run away, even when she was pushed beyond her limits.
When building out a truly lived-in friendship onscreen, it’s easier to tap into fact instead of fiction.
The ensemble cast for Prime Video’s reimagining of “A League of Their Own” fused the real-life stories behind the traveling baseball league formed in 1943 with the female friendships and queer love stories at the center of it all. “A League of Their Own” centers on Carson (Abbi Jacobson), a catcher who runs away from her marriage and tries to untangle her sexual identity with the help of Greta (D’Arcy Carden), a charismatic and seductively empowered new teammate.
Meanwhile, in racially-segregated Rockford, Illinois, all-star player Max (Chanté Adams) is seeking a team to play on, while pal Clance (Gbemisola Ikumelo) supports Max’s similar journey to sexual self-discovery.
During the Tribeca Festival premiere Q&A for the series, star, showrunner, co-creator, and executive producer Jacobson gushed over how Carden, her real-life friend of 15-plus years, brought her own swagger to Greta’s powerhouse persona. Yet Carden clarified to IndieWire that transforming into Greta was more than just donning a 1940s baseball uniform.
“It’s funny, Abbi has been saying that,” Carden said. “Abbi says like ‘Greta is D’arcy, D’arcy is Greta.’ In our real lives I’ll do something and she’ll say, ‘That’s Greta!’ And on set I’d be doing something and she’d be like, ‘That’s D’arcy!’ But I don’t see that as much, and when I think of Greta, I think like, ‘How do I play this gal?’ I think of it more as a stretch. She’s seeing something different. But I know there are some things that work both as Greta as D’Arcy, especially my relationship with Abbi.
From co-creators and executive producers Abbi Jacobson and Will Graham, the Amazon Studios original series A League of Their Own embraces the spirit of the 1992 film from director Penny Marshall while delving much deeper into its 1940s/World War II time period and what the dream of playing professional baseball meant to a generation of women. When Carson Shaw (Jacobson) leaves her life behind to try out for the Peaches, she meets a team of smart, funny women, each of whom is trying to overcome their own obstacles in order to find themselves out on the baseball field.
During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, D’Arcy Carden (who plays the equal parts sassy and confident team player Greta Gill) talked about how much she wanted to be a part of A League of Their Own, her background with baseball, and what it was like to work with the professional players. She also spoke about the challenge that came with wearing the gloves for the era, the Greta and Jo (Melanie Field) friendship, and what she thinks might need to happen for Greta and Carson, if they get to continue telling this story. She also talked about whether she’d be game to appear on the CBS series Ghosts, alongside her longtime friend Brandon Scott Jones.
Actor D’Arcy Carden joins the 3rd Hour of TODAY to talk about stepping up to the plate in Amazon’s reimagined “A League of Their Own” series. She also talks about working with Abbi Jacobson, adding the apostrophe to her name in junior high, and remembering the great moments from “The Good Place.”
Actress and comedian D’Arcy Carden, who stars in the new Prime Video series, ‘A League of Their Own,’ makes her first appearance on The Late Show and walks away as the newest member of our softball team, The Sea Captains!
After watching D’Arcy Carden kiss Abbi Jacobson’s shoulder for the third time in one Zoom call, it’s easy to see how their 15-year friendship survived the time The Good Place star was cut from the pilot of Broad City.
Over a decade ago, Carden and Jacobson met at an Upright Citizens Brigade improv class called On-Camera Commercial Acting. “I don’t think either of us thought we were gonna get on a show. It was like, Let’s get on a commercial,” Jacobson says and then laughs. Though the now 38-year-old comedian would go on to co-create Broad City, and is currently the co-creator and star of Amazon’s new series, A League of Their Own, she wasn’t appreciated in that particular class.
“Abbi was so funny and so specific and so unique. I remember going home and telling my boyfriend, who now is my husband, about this weird girl,” Carden says, recalling a performance in which Jacobson ripped open a heart and smeared blood all over her face. It wasn’t particularly well-received by their instructor, but Carden was enamored. “I do remember having that moment of like, I really see this girl. The teacher doesn’t but I do. A couple of years later, she has her own show, and it’s like, Oh no, and the world does too, but I felt like I discovered her.”
Carden, of course, would find notoriety of her own as Janet, Heaven’s all-knowing personal assistant on The Good Place from 2016 to 2020. However, one of the Emmy-nominated actor’s first roles never saw the light of day. Though Carden was initially cast as a Deals Deals Deals employee for the pilot episode of Jacobson’s hit Comedy Central series, the scene was left on the cutting room floor. Thankfully, that left room for Carden to return for five episodes as the chaotic Soulstice trainer Gemma, which caught the attention of The Good Place creator Michael Schur. “You had my back,” Carden says. ”She always stuck out her neck for me, and it truly changed my life.”
Now, the best friends have been reunited as lovers in Jacobson’s deliciously queer adaptation of the 1992 classic, A League of Their Own. Unlike the original film, which was centered around a down-on-his-luck baseball player tasked with managing an all-female team during World War II, Jacobson’s version follows an all-new batch of Peaches, led by her character, Carson Shaw. While her husband’s at war, Shaw takes the opportunity to follow her dreams of playing professional ball, but finds so much more than she could have ever expected in her mysterious—and very hot—teammate Greta Gill (played by Carden).
“I do have your back, but I didn’t make you brilliant,” Jacobson tells Carden. “I think it’s clear now. I’ll bring you on everything.”
The pair sat down with Glamour to talk about queer representation in A League of Their Own, improvising a pivotal scene, and more.