Yahoo Finance Rosie O'Donnell to Guest on Amazon's New A League of Their Own Series
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There's no crying in baseball, and there's no A League of Their Own without Rosie O'Donnell!
The 59-year-old comedian — who had her breakout big screen role as Doris Murphy in the late Penny Marshall's 1992 sports comedy — will return to the title in a guest role on Amazon Studio's upcoming A League of Their Own series.
O'Donnell announced the news during an appearance on the recent episode of Everything 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.
The series was co-created by Broad City's Abbi Jacobson and Will Graham (Mozart in the Jungle). Jacobson, O'Donnell said, actually called her directly to get her involved.
"I had a great experience on A 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 the Broad City women and when I was told [Abbi] was doing League, 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 original League of Their Own movie told the story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League that formed during World War II. O'Donnell starred in it alongside Geena Davis, Lori Petty, Madonna, and Tom 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 Weekly reported last August.
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Bruce Glikas/WireImage Rosie O'Donnell
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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, during League 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."
