“Étoile” is not the first television show Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino have made about the ballet world. That distinction belongs to “Bunheads,” the ABC Family dramedy that aired for one season more than a dozen years ago. Since “Bunheads” was a coming-of-age story about four aspiring ballerinas growing up in a small coastal town, the married, 10-time Emmy-winning creators consider “Étoile” their first true workplace comedy. The Prime Video series, the pair’s first TV project since “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and was canceled June 6 after one season (after we spoke to them), follows two renowned ballet companies — one in Manhattan, the other in Paris — whose respective artistic directors, Jack McMillan (Luke Kirby) and Geneviève Lavigne (Charlotte Gainsbourg), agree to swap their best talent in a last-ditch effort to save their struggling institutions. “Setting a workplace comedy in the world of ballet, you see the behind the scenes, you can focus on the lives of the dancers and who they are as people,” Sherman-Palladino, who trained as a dancer from a young age, said. “It’s not so much about the ballet you see on stage, it’s the ballet of what it takes to get on stage. That’s what we really wanted to dive into here.” What was different about bringing “Étoile” to life compared with “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and “Gilmore Girls”? DANIEL PALLADINO We had never worked equally in two different countries [France and the United States], so that was new, challenging and fun all at the same time. AMY SHERMAN-PALLADINO And we don’t speak French, so there you go. PALLADINO We wrote scenes that were meant to be spoken in French by French actors, so we needed a translator we really trusted. We went through quite a few and finally found a translator; our French actors were saying, “It pops off the page now the way your English words do.” That was a challenge, but we like a challenge. We get bored very easily. How did you manage the New York side versus the Paris side of production? Which half was more difficult to wrangle? PALLADINO For two people who are very hands-on, aka control freaks, it was a real challenge to know how soon in advance we really needed to plan certain dances. Certain locations needed to be locked in much, much sooner in France than in New York. Then we ran into the [Paris] Olympics and every production was shut down during the Olympics, including “Emily in Paris,” which is one of the reasons Emily was tooling around on a motorbike in Rome for part of the season. SHERMAN-PALLADINO In Paris, they have different hours — they work 10 hours, there are meal penalties. We really needed to know we could get our work done on each of those Paris days because there kind of was no option. PALLADINO We shot the first six episodes of Paris scenes first, then we came to New York and shot all the New York stuff, and then went back to Paris and shot the last two episodes. It was very much filmed out of sequence, a lot more than we usually do. In fact, we didn’t finish the first episode until the very last week. You have worked with Luke Kirby before on “Maisel,” but Lou de Laâge was someone the show introduced me to. And Charlotte Gainsbourg was a recast. How did you land them? SHERMAN-PALLADINO Luke’s got Stockholm Syndrome right now. He’s sort of a happy hostage at the moment. PALLADINO I don’t think [Lou had] ever been in an American movie. She was a working French actress. There is an incredibly strong acting community in France, and there are so many movies that the French make that never come to America. Lou was one of a dozen very, very, very excellent auditions that we got for the Cheyenne character. But she immediately popped out to us — her bravery, her beauty. And she’s nothing like the character. SHERMAN-PALLADINO I know! She’s quite lovely and delightful. PALLADINO She’s quite a lighthearted, giggling, fun person to be around and then when she snaps into Cheyenne she becomes very scary. We obviously knew Charlotte. We had two or three of her CDs; we had all of her father, Serge Gainsbourg’s, CDs; and we had two of [her mother] Jane Birkin’s CDs. SHERMAN-PALLADINO We knew her serious work, but we had never seen her do comedy or didn’t think she was interested in comedy. PALLADINO We were a little surprised that she put herself out there. She read the script … SHERMAN-PALLADINO … and her people called. PALLADINO She wanted to meet and she had a meal with Amy, who thought it was going to be a sales job. At a certain point, Charlotte caught on to that and said, “I want to do it. You don’t have to [sell me].” SHERMAN-PALLADINO Yeah, it was like, “Stop talking, it’s fine. Just tell me when we’re starting so we can all get out of this restaurant.” It was great to see her come alive in this, especially her physical comedy. It was a revelation to us. You have created a stable of actors you’ve gone back to time and time again like Luke, Kelly Bishop and Yanic Truesdale. Has it helped, knowing there is already a shorthand with them? PALLADINO They are all in the next room waiting for us. SHERMAN-PALLADINO We promised them food at six. PALLADINO Kelly Bishop is very unique. The role we wrote for Luke’s mom in “Étoile,” there are very few other actresses who could do that role. We basically write for her because we know what her comic strengths are. The Yanic thing, we were not planning on it, and then we realized Yanic speaks French and it made sense. SHERMAN-PALLADINO And we could finally do something for him that was not Michel [from “Gilmore Girls”]. Luke Kirby, we wrote this for him because we have been looking to do something with him where he’s got to come in every day. He didn’t come in enough [on “Maisel”]. Basically, it’s all about us needing friends. “Étoile” was picked up for two seasons. Since the first season ends on a cliff-hanger, what’s coming for Season 2? (Amazon canceled the series on June 6 after our interview took place.) SHERMAN-PALLADINO Do we know [Season 2] is coming? We don’t know that’s coming. Two-season pickups just mean you get to shove half the cost of the sets from Season 1 to Season 2. It doesn’t mean much more than that. We are there. We are waiting for the Amazon overlords to bring their hover-ship down and tell us what was decided in the 10 minutes Katy Perry was up there orbiting the Earth. A version of this story first ran in the Comedy issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the Comedy issue here.