'Vice Principals' Postmortem: Georgia King on the Real Amanda Snodgrass
Throughout the first six episodes of HBO’s Vice Principals, the latest offbeat comedy from Eastbound & Down masterminds Jody Hill and Danny McBride, we’ve watched in awkward amusement as North Jackson High’s emotionally stunted vice principal Neal Gamby (McBride) has tried to express his affection for English teacher Amanda Snodgrass (Georgia King). To say that he’s failed spectacularly in that regard would be an understatement, mostly leaving his dream girl confused or offended instead of intrigued. But in the Aug. 21 episode, “The Foundation of Learning,” it looked like Amanda might finally be seeing some good in Neal. Of course, that might just be due to the fact that she’s been treated so badly by Bill Hayden (Mike O’Gorman), the dashing history teacher that won Amanda’s heart before proceeding to stomp all over it. Yahoo TV spoke with the Scotland-born actress about bad break-ups, Amanda’s secret neediness, and popping 12 O’clock wheelies in motocross.
Related: ‘Vice Principals’ Review: Danny McBride and Walton Goggins Get Schooled
We’ve all been waiting to learn a little bit more about who Amanda is, and this episode gives us a lot of new information.
It certainly does! What I love about how Danny and Jody have put together this story is the fact that they reveal different things at different times, so it always keeps an audience on their toes. Even for me reading the scripts, it was a huge revelation for me to see all these layers of her. This is a person who you think has her life in quite good order, but it turns out that maybe she doesn’t.
For so much of the season, we’ve only observed Amanda through Neal’s idealized gaze. Here, we get to see her on her own terms.
Exactly. It’s smart to set up an idea of somebody and then see the actual reality of that character. Amanda has a lot of issues, and might actually have a lot in common with him. It’s really cool to see the parallels between the characters and what brings them together. It’s so human; everyone has flaws and anxieties, and I’m thrilled the full spectrum of her personality is brought forward in this episode.
It’s revealed in the first scene, for example, that Neal’s suspicions about Amanda being attracted to the history teacher, Bill Hayden, are completely founded.
Yeah, you saw little glimmers of a possible attraction between them before, but you didn’t know if that’s because Gamby is jealous or if something is really going on.
But then the episode subverts our expectations once again, because it turns out this romantic interlude is a prelude to their break-up. We skipped over the actual romance!
I know! And Bill’s so awful to her. We’re often blinded by romance; we decide to not see things we don’t want to see, and put up with behavior that we shouldn’t put up with. The break-up speaks volumes about how insecure Amanda is. She’s trying to be with somebody who is so terrible to her. I cringed when I read the episode for the first time and saw how she put herself out there for him and gets shot down so badly.
Did it feel authentic to any romantic experiences you might have had in your own past?
Oh gosh, certainly! We’ve all gone through strange relationships, and put up with strange behavior — and behaved strangely as well. I love the fact that Snodgrass tries to play it cool and gives the idea that she’s easy-breezy, when in fact she’s heartbroken and hurting. She thinks that showing vulnerability would be weak, and that’s something I’m definitely guilty of. I pretended to be super-cool, and not be bothered by things and play off any kind of heartache when I was younger for sure.
The other big thing we learn about Amanda in this episode is that she’s a motocross expert. Is that something you have experience with?
Before shooting, I Googled, “What is motocross?” [Laughs] I didn’t grow up in America, so there was a lot of homework for me in this school-driven story. But I got to have motocross lessons, and I was a grade-A student. I actually surpassed their expectations on the first lesson and graduated from a smaller bike to a bigger one right away. I did my teachers proud! The hardest thing is to start the bike, because you can slice your shin if you do it incorrectly. As it turns out, the only thing I had to do on camera was start the bike. The rest of the scenes were done with a rig, and there were more safety restrictions because of insurance. There was not quite as much freestyling!
Are you able to pop a 12 O’clock wheelie in real life?
When I say that I’m a grade-A student in motocross, I mean that I can sit on a bike and ride it. [Laughs] But I’m confident that, with time, I could do a 12 O’clock. I haven’t touched a bike since shooting, but never say never.
What can you tease about the future of Neal and Amanda’s relationship for the rest of the season?
I think the end of the episode is a really great turning point to understand that both of them have a full spectrum of emotions, and lights and darks. You’ve seen that Snodgrass is as lonely and as needy as Gamby, and as awkward as Gamby. So there’s some awkwardness between the two as they try to navigate their affection for each other. The connection between them does grow, but whether that means they’ll end up together I’ll leave as a question mark. It goes without saying that Danny is one of the best human beings I have ever worked with. He’s so generous and fun and wickedly funny.
What’s in store for Season 2?
We already shot Season 2! We had a week off in between seasons and then we rolled straight into Season 2. David Gordon Green directed the second season, and we had a new Director of Photography and a couple new crew members, so it has a different feel but is still very much the same show. It’s an incredible treat as an actor to be able to keep going and exploring characters and storylines rather than taking a year off. It’s a big journey from the beginning of Season 1 to the end of Season 2 — it’s like a very long novel essentially. That’s why every episode doesn’t fit into a formula; they feel more like the chapters of a longer story.
Vice Principals airs Sundays at 10:30 p.m. on HBO.
