‘P-Valley’: The Actors Do Their Own Stunts
Starz drama series P-Valley has returned for a second season. The show follows the lives of Uncle Clifford (Nicco Annan), the owner of the town’s popular strip club The Pynk, her co-owner Autumn Night (Elarica Johnson), and the women who work for them. The Pynk’s long-time headliner Mercedes (Brandee Evans) has been looking to retire for years, but her dreams have been continually thwarted.
The physicality of dancing is a central part of the series, and the actors even do their own stunts.
The actors on ‘P-Valley’ have an intense workout routine leading up to filming
When it comes to showing The Pynk, P-Valley focuses on the athleticism of the dancers instead of seeing them through a purely sexual lens. It takes a great deal of power and strength to work the pole, and it requires the actors to be in top shape to make things look as realistic as possible.
“I am in the gym all the time, trying to stay in shape,” Evans told Digital Spy. “Because I feel like if I can stay strong, then I can do the things that’s needed of me on the pole. I stretched more this season, especially after two years of not being in a split, girl. My body was like: what’s happening? So I was trying to stretch more. I would bring my meals to set – meal prep”.I tackled it more so on the lines of being an athlete this season.”
Though Mercedes has an injured shoulder on the show, she’s still showing up and showing out.
Many of them do their own stunts for the TV show
Though they have body doubles that take on some of the more challenging dance moves, many of the actors do their own dance moves on the show.
“A lot of times, yes it is,” Evans explained to Digital Spy when asked about her P-Valley stunts “However, our amazing choreographer, Jamaica Craft, does have wonderful doubles for all of us actors. I definitely do a lot of my stunts, but we do have our amazing body doubles for certain moves. I did more this season. But also, because I did more, we had to have our doubles come in and do more as well.”
Though we are only partly into the season, we’ve already seen such transfixing work on the pole. Still, on top of the pole work, the actors also have to prepare their lines and get into character, which must be exhausting.
‘P-Valley’ Season 2 is very dark
The second season of P-Valley is underway, and fans are watching Uncle Clifford and Autumn try to keep the doors of The Pynk open by any means necessary. However, this season is also extremely dark.
After the events of Murda Night, The Pynk is now a haunted place.
“Some things went down,” Hall told ET Online. “We really wanted to embrace horror and the tropes of horror in order to really articulate how people were haunted on an individual level, but also this is a community that is haunted,” Hall continues. “In Mississippi, even now, they’re haunted by the original sin of slavery and we’re delving into the injustice system that’s still present not only in Mississippi but quite frankly around the world.”
