Sara Bareilles on the ‘Stroke of Genius’ That Makes Waitress So Radical—And Enduring

Beyond that, Bareilles is excited to share this story. Like one particular pie described in the show, the ingredients are familiar—romance, friendship, family, nostalgia—but they’re mixed together in a way you wouldn’t necessarily expect.

“It’s really incredible to see the tableau at the end of the show is not a romantic one,” she says, before correcting herself. “I mean, it is a romantic one; it’s the great love of friendship, which I think is so often kind of like a second-tier love story. For me, some of the greatest loves of my life are my close friends.”

In a candid conversation with Glamour, Bareilles shares more about the upcoming film, including why the message is so salient today.

Glamour: What were some of the biggest changes in the filmed version? I noticed there’s a real, live baby.

Sara Bareilles: Overall, we really made great efforts to keep it [the same]. There were discussions: Where does it need to be edited differently? Do we need to lose certain things? And we were all feeling like we really want to preserve what is happening inside those four walls.

The addition of the baby was an incredible stroke of genius in my opinion, from our director Diane. It made it so emotional. She was, I want to say, two months old. You can shoot a baby for 20 minutes. That’s it. The baby started out kind of calm and then she got kind of fussy, and I was singing over her crying. But endowing that moment with the reality of a real, live little girl was so deep and so profound and really made the stakes of this moment come to life so beautifully.

What’s your favorite moment to perform in the show?

One of my favorite moments is “Soft Place to Land,” which is where the three waitresses are in the pantry and they’re singing three-part harmony. That song is so dreamy to me, and in the writing of it, it felt very conjured rather than created. I also have a background in choir singing and a cappella singing, so singing tight harmonies and especially three-part harmony—I used to sing with my sisters around the fire—there’s something that feels really resonant about the sisterhood. That theme of the show feels so present in that scene.