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There’s no crying in baseball, and there’s noA League of Their OwnwithoutRosie O’Donnell!
The 59-year-old comedian — who had her breakout big screen role as Doris Murphy inthe late Penny Marshall’s 1992 sports comedy— will return to the title in a guest role onAmazon Studio’s upcomingA League of Their Ownseries.
O’Donnell announced the news during an appearance onthe recent episode ofEverything Iconic with Danny Pellegrino, which was released on Wednesday.
Asked if she’d be participating in the show, O’Donnell said, “Yes, I’m playing a bartender in one of the scenes at the local gay bar.”
“I didn’t shoot it yet, I’m shooting it in the upcoming months,” she added.
“I had a great experience onA League of Their Own,” O’Donnell told Pellegrino of the movie, which marked her film debut and catapulted her career beyond the standup scene. “I love theBroad Citywomen and when I was told [Abbi] was doingLeague, she called me up and said, ‘Ro, would you do it?’ And I said, ‘In a minute.’ "
“Then she sent me the pilot that she did and it was just really beautiful,” O’Donnell added.
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The originalLeague of Their Ownmovie told the story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League that formed during World War II. O’Donnell starred in it alongsideGeena Davis,Lori Petty,Madonna, andTom Hanks.
Jacobson will also star in the show, alongside Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation),Chanté Adams(Roxanne Roxanne),D’Arcy Carden(The Good Place), Gbemisola Ikumelo (Brain in Gear), Kelly McCormack (Killjoys), Roberta Colindrez (Vida), and Priscilla Delgado (The Protected).
The series “will evoke the spirit of the classic film while widening the lens to explore race and sexuality with a new ensemble of characters,“Entertainment Weeklyreported last August.
Rosie O’Donnell.Bruce Glikas/WireImage
O’Donnell went on to tell Pellegrino on his podcast that while her character Doris was never identified as a lesbian, that’s how she interpreted the role. Marshall, on the other hand, thought differently.
“It’s funny, duringLeague of Our Own, my character again, I think was gay,” O’Donnell recalled. “And when she had that speech — ‘I never really felt like a real girl. I always felt like a fake girl, not even a girl, but now there’s a lot of us and I feel like we’re all okay’ — I did that in the bus and Penny Marshall goes, ‘Rosie, do it again. It’s not a gay thing.’ "
Of course, O’Donnell disagreed. “I said, ‘Pen, did you read the words? The words are totally that she finally feels she fits in amongst this group of tomboys. There’s this little bit of an undertone,’ " she recalled.
In the end, Marshall didn’t back down. “She said, ‘No, it’s not gay anything. Don’t make it a gay anything,’ " O’Donnell remembered. “So I played it the way I played it. But again, to me, that was a gay character.”
source: people.com
