‘GLOW’ Actress Lands New TV Role After Show’s Sudden Cancellation

An actress who had a big role on the hit Netflix series GLOW has landed a new TV role. According to Variety, Gale Rankin, who played Sheila the She-Wolf in GLOW, has been cast on the new FX series Kindred, which is based on Octavia Butler’s 1979 science fiction novel of the same name. She will join Mallori Johnson, who will play the lead role of Dana, a young Black writer who finders herself transported back between the present day and a slave plantation from the 19th century. Kindred will also include Micah Stock, Ryan Kwanten, Austin Smith, Antoinette Crowe-Legacy and David Alexander Kaplan as series regulars.

In a 2020 interview with Brief Take, Rankin talked about her role on GLOW and the transformation she went through during the final season. “I mean, it gets a bit meta,” she said. “Because I’m a theatre actress, [chuckles] and Sheila has that in her and the chrysalis that she was into then start to break through to become a butterfly.

“I was certainly feeling all those feelings. Different feelings than my own because Sheila and I are very different people. Very vulnerable…I was shaken by the unveiling, by the challenge of the metaphor of having to be done with a part of yourself. Because we’ve all in our own way have had or will have or are putting off having that experience in our life. [laughs] It is extremely brave. She’s very brave.”

GLOW, which focused on women’s professional wrestling, began streaming in 2017 and ended its run in 2019. A fourth season was in the works, but the show was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Rankin starred in GLOW alongside Alison Brie, Betty Gilpin, Sydelle Noel, Britney Young, Kate Nash, Marc Maron and Kia Stephens. 

After GLOW, Rankin moved on to star in the miniseries Perry Mason. She plays Emily Dodson, the mother of a son who is mysteriously kidnapped. “I knew from the very beginning from who was involved,” Rankin said when talking about Perry Mason. “From the very beginning, my agent and I, the casting director Sherry Thomas, who is one of the most incredible and has been a champion of mine for years and then Tim Van Patten, who is extraordinary, an extraordinary, creative director. I immediately knew that I was in good hands and it was something in which I had to be involved.”