‘Étoile’ cast and creators dig into Cheyenne’s surprising job offer

Cheyenne Toussaint (Lou de Laâge) is a dancer to her core, but the season finale of Étoile had her entertaining the idea of a new title, artistic director.

After first rejecting the suggestion made by donor (and thorn in Jack’s side) Crispin Shamblee (Simon Callow), Jack McMillan (Luke Kirby) makes the wild decision to offer the open position of artistic director (vacated by the in-a-coma Nicholas) to Cheyenne. And she accepts.

“It comes from a very unwelcome place,” Kirby says. “And it’s a ridiculous idea at the outset. But it provides him one thing, which is keeping her in New York.”

“But I also think that he truly means it when he says that she has vision and that kind of vision is rare,” he continues. “She’s a very rare force and a difficult one to have around. So I don’t think it comes easily to ask her to participate in it. But he really thinks that it could make for a very exciting new season at the company.”

Co-creator Amy Sherman-Palladino agrees that, despite the source of the suggestion, Jack can’t deny that giving Cheyenne the job is what his ballet company needs.

“Jack is going to fight it tooth and nail, just like he fought the swap idea,” she says. “But in the end, the longevity of the company is the most important thing. And it needs something original. It needs the pop of energy. She’s the future.”

Though Cheyenne takes some time to contemplate the offer, she ultimately decides to take the job.

“She knows that her career is not eternal,” de Laâge adds. “She has to find another way to dance because she can’t be a dancer for all her life. She’s very confident with herself. She’s like, ‘I have a vision, and I have something to give to the ballet world, so I want to try that.'”

The offer creates a lot of potential turmoil for the head of the Paris ballet, Geneviève Lavigne (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who is supposed to get Cheyenne back after the year-long swap that she and Jack agree to in the series premiere.

Ironically, without Geneviève and her encouragement of Jack over the course of the season, Jack likely never would have made such an out-of-the-box decision. “Geneviève was the person that got him out of his lethargy and made him think that you have to take risks,” reflects co-creator Dan Palladino. “The decision he makes in episode 8 is not a decision he would’ve made when we first met him. He was much more conservative.”

“But now Geneviève has shown him how to take risks,” Palladino continues. “He realizes, ‘Don’t go right down the middle, don’t go with one of the usual names off the list, go with someone who might fail spectacularly, but also might succeed spectacularly.’ Genevieve got him out of his mindset and now he’s doing something that actually crosses against Geneviève and is taking a risk on this fiery woman.”

The risk, however, is short-lived when Nicholas magically wakes from his coma and makes a triumphant return to the company. A notion that, along with being dumped by dance partner Gael (David Alvarez), sends Cheyenne into a tailspin.

“She’s disappointed because Jack puts this idea in her head,” de Laâge says. “She wants to become the head of the company, the artistic director. That’s become a dream for her. Now, she’s going to fight to have what she wants.”

The season ends on an open question of whether or not Cheyenne will succeed in replacing Nicholas in the job.

“It’s a real mess for her,” Palladino says. “We started her journey with a woman who was wondering if she had anything left in her. She was 32, 33, which is when ballerinas start thinking about longevity.”

“She’s in a horribly emotional state at the end,” he reflects. “She read into the slip as basically the coming of the end of her career. And she’s acting rashly. So, there’s a lot of tidying up emotionally to do.”

That mess is also partly due to the fact that Cheyenne’s dance partner, Gael, dumps her right before they premiere their new ballet. Though Cheyenne seemed to see the relationship as one that was purely physical, she falls apart after the breakup.

“She’s really bad with her emotions,” de Laâge explains. “She even doesn’t know for herself what happened in her body and her emotions. She’s totally lost. But I think she doesn’t like it when someone tells her no. She wants to say no, but she doesn’t want to hear no in the mouth of someone else. And she really likes him because he’s different — he’s a really good dancer, and she has admiration for him.”

All that turmoil leads Cheyenne to make bad choices — namely, hooking up with Jack (who we also learn had a relationship with her in the past).

“Having a love story with this woman is a terrible idea,” quips de Laâge.

Kirby adds, “Really, really terrible. But not as terrible as being with Gael.”