JESSICA BIEL TRANSFORMS INTO ‘THE SINNER’
Jessica Biel has gotten the reviews of her career by going a little psycho in the USA Network limited series mystery drama The Sinner, which won her Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice nominations and has now put her in serious contention for a Lead Actress nod in the Limited Series/Movie category at the Emmys.
She truly becomes almost unrecognizable in the creepy story of a woman named Cora who goes crazy one day and kills a man in full public view, and in front of her husband and young son, on a crowded beach. Since we know who did this from the start, the eight part series is more of a “why-did-she-do-it” as she gradually unravels emotionally and the mysteries about her motive deepens. It has gotten the best notices for the USA Network since Season 1 of Mr. Robot, and it has launched a major Emmy campaign on Biel’s and the show’s behalf.
Biel, who also serves as an executive producer, praises USA as well as her return to TV where as a child actor she did more than 130 episodes of the polar-opposite Seventh Heaven.
“Television has changed so much since I was a kid…I mean specifically for women, the great roles on TV, so it just felt like a no-brainer,” she told me in a phone conversation this week. “It’s just like being up on the evolution of your business and finding where you can tell the most compelling stories, and where you can find the most intriguing characters, and that’s on television now.”
She and partner Michelle Purple teamed with Universal Cable Productions which brought her the book, they hired writer-creator Derek Simonds, shopped the pilot around town and sold it to USA. It is not as easy as it sounds due to the nature of the material, and not the norm of what USA has previously been known for. “They took a huge risk with this show, right? I mean this is really dark material. Would anybody even care to watch something like this? None of us really knew the answer to that but I’ve just been so thankful they jumped off the cliff with us and were really bold and courageous and not interested in doing the same things over and over again,” she said.
I suggested to Biel that the emotional toll this role must have taken on her would likely send anyone to a therapist. “I am glad to hear you say that. Believe me, I saw a therapist before, during, and after,” she laughed. “I’m still seeing my therapist. That’s just part of my life now. I always make this joke that I need to see some sort of facialist after the amount of crying, and forehead scrunching and eye scrunching. My poor skin after that show, I feel like I aged 10 years.”
Still, Biel said as an actor this is the kind of dream role you live for, however torturous it may seem, because it is the most creatively fulfilling. She says she did have to go deep to try to find compassion and understanding for this deeply disturbed character in some way, and tried to relate it to obviously dissimilar traumas she has experienced in her own life to help her get there.
“I think any great character actor, anybody who’s ever played a villain before would say the same thing, that to find that empathy, and that compassion for this person, you really have to start to believe in them,” she said. “You have to believe in their path or whatever it is that your character is trying to accomplish, you have to have major empathy for that even if it is insane… If you just play crazy then it is a bad performance.”
For Biel, The Sinner represents a new way of taking charge of her career, and that is also as a producer. Due to the show’s success it has now been picked up for a second season with a brand new story, ala American Crime Story. Co-star Bill Pullman will continue on as the detective with a new featured star, Carrie Coon, but Biel will be involved only as a producer. She likes the new direction.
“Our business is changing. It’s very different now,” she said. “I don’t feel that to be fully engaged in your career is just sitting by phone hoping that somebody calls you, hoping that there’s an audition that you can score out of the multitudes of amazingly talented people. It just doesn’t work like that anymore. It’s too competitive. For me, I was craving to do more anyway and I wanted some different experiences. I wanted to wear some different hats. I want to have a long career and you know I don’t necessarily feel like, ‘Well am I going to be doing this when I’m 60 or 70 years old?’ I don’t know. Maybe. That’ll be really great, but it would also be great to have another side of a career where I’m producing things for other people. I have a great company that I’m behind. I’m partnering with people, we’re making great content, and it doesn’t necessarily all have to bank on me being on screen, even though right now I’m still very interested.”
In addition to this Emmy contender, Biel also has a recurring role in another likely nominee, Netflix’s wild and crazy animated hit BoJack Horseman, in which she voices a character that is Jessica Biel! “How about that? It’s so much fun. I mean BoJack is…it’s almost like a crime that you get paid for it because it’s so much fun and those guys are so funny and cool and you just walk into that booth and you’re there for a couple hours literally just being totally insane and crazy,” she said. “I get to make fun of myself like I’m some crazy pretentious bimbo. I get to be like kind of psychotic. They write me just going anything and everything and it’s always this sort of heightened surreal kind of person or version of me and that’s just fun. I mean people don’t think of me to do things like that and I’d love to do more things like that especially on camera stuff too, so it’s a really nice kind of dipping my toe into a comedy world that feels safe.”
As for the immediate future, she will be spending the summer buzzing around Europe with her family and following husband Justin Timberlake on his latest tour, while her company continues to develop new projects. “We’ll see what bites,” she said.
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