Cleo King on The Dink Movie: How She Booked Gail on a Pickleball Court, Learned the Game from Brad Gilbert, and Never Put the Paddle Down
Dinks On Tap: The Happy Hour Pickleball PodcastShow Notes
We all love a Gail. We've met her at open play, we've been her on a bad-line-call day, and we've absolutely texted the group about her afterward. We love her enough that we tracked down the woman behind the Gail character in the movie, The Dink, and brought her to your favorite pickleball happy hour podcast.
In this episode, we sit down with Cleo King, the actress who plays Gail in The Dink, to talk about how a same-day audition turned into the role everybody quotes, what a month of learning pickleball from Brad Gilbert looked like before cameras rolled, and what the pickleball community has been telling her since the film came out. We also get into pickleball etiquette, because Cleo has opinions about people who aim at people.
Until Jake Johnson called, she'd picked up a paddle twice in her life. Now she plays three times a week, packs three paddles when she travels, and belongs on any honest list of celebrities that play pickleball.
In this episode, we talk about:
The phone call from Jake Johnson that turned an ordinary drive to Palm Springs into an audition on an actual court
Why the casting team wouldn't let Cleo talk to the other women reading for Gail, and what she did anyway
What Cleo was more nervous about at the audition, and it wasn't the eleven pages she'd memorized overnight
What most of The Dink movie cast had in common before those lessons started, and who the exception was
The one adjustment that fixed Cleo's return of serve, which every regular already knows and nobody had told her
Where the "do the dishes while you're in there" line came from, and what director Josh Greenbaum said when she asked to try it
Why Cleo's pet peeve has nothing to do with the rules and everything to do with where you aim
How Casie and Lauren's Dallas screening crowd reacted to the pickleball movie, and the two lines they quoted on the way out
The fantasy foursome that includes Ron Howard and Oprah, and the reason Michelle Obama didn't make the cut
If you've ever had a Gail in your group, or suspected you might be the Gail, this conversation will make you love her a little more.
Pour something cold and press play.
Cheers,
Casie and Lauren
Dinks on Tap
Drew Brees Celebrity Pickleball Tournament: https://delmar.wine/event/drew-brees-celebrity-pickleball-tournament/ (Promo Code: DINKSONTAP20 — 20% off Pickleball spectator tickets only)
Del Mar Food & Wine Festival: https://delmar.wine/ (Promo Code: DINKSONTAP15 — 15% off all Grand Tasting ticket tiers.)
Let’s keep the conversation going! Connect with us:
Instagram: @dinksontap
Facebook: @DinksonTapWebsite: dinksontap.com
Connect with Cleo:
Instagram: @cleoking5404
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cleokingactress
Watch Cleo as Gale in The Dink on Apple TV. She's the one running the country club, and the dishes line is worth the price of admission on its own.
Cleo plays Big Mama in Nemesis, an eight-episode crime thriller on Netflix. It's already renewed for season two, so there's time to catch up.
More from Dinks On Tap: The Happy Hour Pickleball Podcast
How did a game three grown men made up on a badminton court, because a 13-year-old was bored, turn into the thing your group text runs on? We found the kid who complained, and he still can’t believe it either. In this episode, we get into our summer vault, full of conversations, stories, and a little pickleball drama we never got around to airing. We sat down with Frank Pritchard, the bored kid himself, who can answer “When was pickleball invented?” because he was there when his dad, Bill Bell, and Barney McCallum made up the game on Bainbridge Island. We also cover Picklr’s Chapter 11 filing and the “is pickleball dying” headlines that followed, Genie Bouchard’s paddle-tap walkout and what it says about pickleball etiquette, and why the drinks after play keep the pickleball community together. You’ll learn: Why it's called pickleball, and the Pritchard family member who came up with the name A firsthand account of who invented pickleball, from the teenager whose complaining started it What the original pickleball paddle was made of, and which founder designed it The pickleball history most players don’t know, including how scoring and serving used to work Why Frank took a 30-year break from the game, and what brought him back What Picklr’s Chapter 11 filing means for your local club, according to the general manager of the Picklr in DFW How the pickleball business can struggle while the number of people playing keeps growing Why Genie Bouchard skipped the paddle tap, and whether we think she was justified How we won a tournament this summer by giving a screaming team a taste of its own medicine
Making friends as an adult can be surprisingly hard, but the pickleball community has a way of bringing people together fast.
Have you ever made it to the front of the paddle line at pickleball open play, only to have your partner dis you because she didn't want to play with "a beginner"?
What really goes on behind the scenes of Major League Pickleball?
Pickleball has a remarkable way of pulling people into your life who probably never would have been there otherwise.