The Stumble Cast on Combining Comedy with Cheerleading, Cast Friendships and Making a Mockumentary

Words: Lauren O’Neill | Photography and creative direction: Lewis Vorn | Videographer: Marie Koury | Makeup: Anissa, Arianna - Mikey Clifton, Georgie, Taylor - Erin Acker | Hair: Taylor - Michael Zambrano, Anissa and Georgie - Beth Rolon, Arianna - Gayette Williams | Styling: Georgie solos - Zoe Gofman, Arianna solos - Venetia Kidd, Anissa solos - Marissa Pelly, Cheer costumes - Leah Katznelson and Angel Peart

As someone who grew up right in the middle of the UK - in big, drab Birmingham, famous for birthing Black Sabbath and having a really big shopping centre, to be exact - and has long been addicted to hair accessories, I was always transfixed by the idea of the American cheerleader as a child. My only exposure to their glamorous, athletic world was through TV shows like Sabrina the Teenage Witch and movies like Bring It On, but that was enough to spark endless hours of imaginary games, where I’d perform cheers and fill up notebooks with uniform designs. I even had a cheap pair of sparkly pom poms that would shed streamers all over my grandparents’ carpet.

So, despite now being 31, when I stepped onto the set of Stumble - a new NBC mockumentary all about the world of competitive junior college cheerleading - I have to admit, it was a bit of a rush. On a soundstage in Brooklyn, the production had built a full-size replica of a junior college gym, complete with bleachers, wall murals, and, of course, a cheer mat. It was, to use the scientific term, a bit of a trip, and a very big treat for the little kid who’d spend days of her life unsuccessfully trying to copy East Compton Clovers routines. 

In 2025, a show like Stumble has been a long time coming. Over the last few years, the world has firmly turned its eye to the world of competitive and professional cheerleading. Since 2020, when the first season of Netflix’s Cheer arrived on screens and became a global phenomenon (and also convinced everyone watching that actually, it was possible to execute a back handspring in their living rooms), cheer culture has gradually inched its way into the mainstream - Netflix followed up Cheer’s enormous success with another behemoth, their Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders documentary America’s Sweethearts. Both programmes revealed the real people behind the sheen, tapping into the cheerleader as a figure beyond the bitchy high school archetype.

Until now, however, the world of cheerleading has remained largely untapped by comedy - so writers Jeff and Liz Astrof decided to do something about that glaring gap on the landscape. Enter: the all-cheering, all-quipping Stumble.

The Astrofs serve as Stumble’s showrunners, and they tapped a team of heavyweights to help them realise their vision. On the crew are alumni of legendary mockumentary The Office (including director Jeff Blitz, who won an Emmy for his work on that series) and Cheer’s very own Coach Monica Aldama, who serves as an executive producer and advisor. Onscreen, the show stars comedy veterans including Kristen Chenoweth, Taran Killam, and Jenn Lyon, which is to say: it’s stacked. 

“It is the only comedy right now that features real competitive cheer with all of its athleticism and dazzle, along with a ton of jokes and an equal amount of heart.”

You might assume that this would be an intimidating environment for the young actors whose characters make up the underdog Buttons cheer team at the centre of the show - but to watch their performances, you’d quickly be relieved of that notion. Anissa Borrego plays Krystal, the “cheerlebrity” of the group (whose cheer outfit, you’ll be delighted to know, is of course totally bejewelled), Arianna Davis is Madonna, a cheerleader with narcolepsy, Georgie Murphy is eager-to-please Sally, and Taylor Dunbar rounds out the foursome, as Peaches, who cheers while wearing an ankle monitor. All four perfectly strike a unique blend of screwball humour, emotional warmth and genuinely jaw-dropping dance prowess. “We had over 10,000 submissions for the cheerleaders,” Liz and Jeff told me over email, “but Georgie, Anissa, Taylor and Arianna were the only ones who could play their unique roles. Each of them has incredible comic timing, truly shines on screen, adds their own depth and compassion to ground their characters.”

Helpfully, the four actors have also become besties. I speak with them all separately a couple of weeks after our onset shoot, and when I bring up their castmates, each of them is immediately genuinely enthusiastic. 

“It’s pretty crazy how well we all kind of fit together,” Georgie tells me over Zoom, before a long day of shooting. “The second we met I was just like: these are my girls. Honestly, I couldn't picture my life without them. I know this sounds maybe like a little cliché -  but it feels like a sisterhood. We all lift each other up, because we're all pretty new to doing something on this level.” Anissa, who chimes in via email, agrees: “We celebrate each other, see each other and have each other’s backs. Girlhood is alive and well here!” 

“I hope that our genuine joy and love for each other and what we are making will shine through and connect with our audience.”

The actors have varied experience with cheer in their own lives. Taylor, a Julliard graduate whose work in Stumble is, surprisingly, her first comedic role, is the baby of a cheering family and while she never cheered herself. She was “kind of the guinea pig like, ‘Let's put Taylor up in the fucking air.’ I was thrown around in pools a bit,” she remembers, laughing. Anissa, on the other hand, “cheered for a large portion of my life, so when this opportunity came along, a part of me was awakened,” she says.

Georgie was a gymnast as a child, and was overawed by the cheerleaders she shared practice space with (“I was like, ‘They're so cool!’ They had their cool outfits and they have this group mentality,” she says), while Arianna is a quadruple threat - a singer, songwriter, actor and dancer - who has been performing “ballet, tap, jazz, lyrical, contemporary, hip hop, a little bit of modern, some fusion styles”, though never cheer, for her “entire life,” she explains. 

Despite their varying levels of contact with cheer throughout their lives, however, all four actors pull Stumble’s high-octane scenes off with aplomb - while stunt doubles are used for some of the more death-defying tricks, the women perform the choreography themselves, requiring a huge amount of trust within the group. Indeed, the show’s balance of high-paced comedy and even higher-paced cheering, is, for the Astrofs, one of its major, exciting selling points: “It is the only comedy right now that features real competitive cheer with all of its athleticism and dazzle, along with a ton of jokes and an equal amount of heart,” they say. 

Where Stumble is less unique, however, is that format–wise, it of course follows in the footsteps of beloved, award-winning mockumentaries like The Office, Parks and Recreation, and Brooklyn 99 - so, like, no pressure for the young cast, right?

“The Office is my favorite television show,” Georgie tells me, with real gravity in her voice. “I've watched it the whole way through probably five times. So when I got the callback, I saw that Jeff Blitz was going to be directing it, and went back and watched all his episodes. It’s pretty crazy because I'm working with a lot of the same people that worked on that show.” 

It’s a big job, undoubtedly, but Taylor, Anissa, Georgie and Arianna are well-equipped to take it on. And while they prepared hard for their roles - they cite references as wide ranging as cheerleader Gabi Butler’s online videos, Mary Katherine Gallagher, SNL and the TV series Jailbirds: New Orleans, and tell me that they watched shows like Abbott Elementary to study timing and pace pre-filming - what really makes them so exciting to watch is their chemistry.

“I hope that our genuine joy and love for each other and what we are making will shine through and connect with our audience,” Anissa says. “As an audience member I love watching people who are having fun, it just makes things better and brings things more to life,” she continues - and I think any Stumble viewer would find it impossible to disagree, as the sheer sparkle and warmth of their bond shines through the screen. “It is a job at the end of the day,” Taylor smiles as we wrap up our conversation, “but on top of being a good actor, Arianna, Georgie and Anissa make me want to be a better person, too.”