Jessica Biel & Elizabeth Banks Reveal Bond

In Prime Video’s limited series The Better Sister, Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks are estranged sisters Chloe and Nicky. Among the reasons they no longer speak: Nicky’s addiction issues, and the fact that Chloe actually married Nicky’s ex-husband Adam (Corey Stoll) and is raising her sister’s son Ethan (Maxwell Acee Donovan) as her own. So it’s safe to say sibling relations are somewhat strained — a situation exacerbated by Chloe’s professional success and slick, buttoned-up exterior, compared with Nicky’s chaotic and unapologetic demeanor.

But when tragedy strikes, Nicky is suddenly thrust back into Chloe’s life and her home. Ultimately, the sisters are forced to peel back deep layers of historical pain to get to the truth about the man they thought they both knew so intimately, everything they had assumed of each other’s childhood experience, and how things went so very, very wrong.

WATCH THE BETTER SISTER INTERVIEW WITH JESSICA BIEL AND ELIZABETH BANKS:

The Better Sister is an adaptation of the bestselling novel of the same name by crime novelist and former prosecutor Alafair Burke, and the series also stars Kim Dickens as Detective Nancy Guidry, Lorraine Toussaint as Chloe’s boss and mentor Catherine Lancaster, Matthew Modine as Adam’s boss Bill Braddock, and Michael Harney as Chloe’s protective doorman Arty.

For co-showrunners and executive producers Olivia Milch and Regina Corrado, underneath all the division between the sisters is a universal story: that even siblings in the same family can have completely different childhoods. Speaking at Deadline’s Contenders Television event earlier this year, Milch said, “I think the thing that really stuck with us when I was reading was this idea that siblings get different versions of their parents depending on birth order, and that shapes your identity. It shapes how you conceive of yourself, how you conceive of your sibling, and particularly if there is a moment of sobriety for a parent. I was 10 when my dad got sober. My sister was 15, my brother was 13. We had very different experiences and memories of our childhood, and that’s at play for these characters as well, for Nicky and Chloe.”

Here, in the midst of a fun Deadline cover shoot that revealed their real-life closeness, Biel and Banks, who also executive produce, sat down with us for a heart-to-heart about what Chloe and Nicky had brought up for them personally, the impact of portraying addiction and violence, and playing out the primal lioness roar of women who will do anything to protect their family.

Watch the video above to see the chat with Biel and Banks, and read on for more below.

DEADLINE: How would you describe your relationship and the process of connecting to play sisters?

ELIZABETH BANKS: The vibes are correct. You know, I’m a big sister, and we’re both boy moms, but my kids are a little older, so I’ve been doing it a little longer. So, I also got to impart some helpful tips. So, it felt sisterly, from jump, you know?

JESSICA BIEL: Yes and I’m an older sister too, but I don’t actually have sisters. And also, in my friend group, which is a really tight group of girls, I am the youngest. So, for me, this is all very easy and normal, right? Tell me what to do, how to do it. That’s what happens in my friend group? So, whenever she says anything like that, I’m like, “Yes, I will do that. Correct.”

DEADLINE: The show examines how siblings can have very different childhoods within the same family. Did that resonate for you personally?

BANKS: I was sort of amazed at how much of my childhood it brought up for me, [with] my dad also. I have two sisters, Sarah and Rebecca, and I also have a baby brother. The showrunners came to me, and they said a theme of the show was how kids growing up in the same house can get different versions of their parents. And for sure, that happened in my family, because I’m 11 years apart from my baby brother. My parents were completely different by the time they were raising him as a baby, you know? And so, I really related to that. My dad also served in Vietnam, and so I knew what that was to come home to, and just what was talked about, what was not talked about, and how hard it was to come home from there for him. So, it’s just really interesting, the long tail that had in our family, and just the sense also of loyalty and sense of place, like I’m from a small town. I grew up hanging out in the woods a lot, I felt connected to all those things.

DEADLINE: Elizabeth, we learn about some of Nicky’s experience through her attendance of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. How was that experience learning about the organization and representing it authentically?

BANKS: First of all, I loved that that exposition gets to come out in a place where it’s supposed to come out in real life. It feels very relatable. It’s a place where sharing happens. And so, I get to say a lot of my internal truths out loud in the show, which is a real gift for a character, because not everybody has that sounding board, or gets to do that. And I’m a huge fan of A.A. I think it’s an incredible program. I have friends and family that have really improved their lives working the steps, and I’ve played other characters in other things who’ve dealt with sobriety, so I’ve had access to that incredible organization, and to Al Anon, and I can’t say enough great things. I really felt a responsibility to represent those shares, those people, that world, in a really authentic way.

DEADLINE: Jessica, can you describe who Chloe is to you and how you found who she is at her core?

BIEL: Chloe’s a person who wears a mask, I guess, in a lot of her life. She’s this public outward-facing persona, and she’s got this big fancy job. She’s very successful. She has this sort of idyllic looking, beautiful, elite lifestyle, but she’s really holding a lot of pain and grief and shame and secrets. And also truths that she believes to be true, that she will eventually find out maybe are not exactly what she thought they were. [There’s] a lot of betrayal and upheaval that she’s going to be dealing with.

I connect with her on a lot of levels. I mean, I really get what it’s like to wear a protective mask and put on a bit of a facade of having a perfect life and having a great career. Growing up in the business, when we were growing up in it, we were really taught to do that. That was really part of the culture is you were media-trained and you presented one way, and you kept your personal life to yourself. Now we don’t do that anymore, right? That’s the exact opposite of what everybody is doing now. But I did that for a long time, and so I don’t exactly connect with the reality that she finds herself in, but I understand how to be two things. I understand how to turn it on, and then privately, it’s something different, and to hide vulnerability and to mask anything that might be looked at as a threat or a failure in some way. Chloe is trying to exist in this really elite society, and if you’re not from there and people don’t trust you, you’re not one of them, you’re an outsider and she can’t have that. She’s worked her way up, she’s built trust with people in her community and people in her business and her world, and she can’t let that fall apart. So, I think that’s really interesting to mess around with psychologically, and I understand I can parallel a little bit of that experience in my life.

I really get what it’s like to wear a protective mask and put on a bit of a facade of having a perfect life and having a great career. Growing up in the business, when we were growing up in it, we were really taught to do that.

Jessica Biel

DEADLINE: There’s just so much in this show, but the first thing that came to mind when I was watching it was how real the sisterly bond is, because there’s resentment, there’s history and love all at the same time, and you really see it when the cops, led by Kim Dickens’ Detective Nancy Guidry, come into the apartment. Suddenly Chloe and Nicky are united and all the intervening issues disappear for a moment.

BANKS: We have a common enemy in that moment. So up until then, we’re kind of fighting each other and all of a sudden, we have a common enemy, and now it’s like we have to stick together. That was a huge conversation we had amongst all of us about what were the moments of connection and togetherness, and when were they working not necessarily even at odds, but with their own agendas, and when did they connect. But Nikki’s a fish out of water. I enter Chloe’s world, so I show up and I’m trying to figure out what are the rules, but I am this deep vulnerability for her, because I am the proof that everything she has said she is, is not necessarily true. And I’m like, “I can out it all.” And she has to trust me and I have to earn the trust that I’m not going to. And I don’t know that that dynamic is really what’s at play. It’s like, do they trust each other to not ruin the good thing that they got going on? And I wouldn’t trust Nicky!

DEADLINE: Chloe becomes someone who’s quite scrappy in the end. She’s quite willing to do anything actually. And Nicky turns from being a hot mess into the most loyal, badass, solid sister. What were some moments where you felt like, this is such a good sisterly moment to play?

BIEL: So many!

BANKS: We had a lot of fun with Nicky really getting to poke at her world. You walk into that apartment and it’s pristine and it’s clean, it’s beautiful. And the very first thing Nicky does is make a giant mess and go, “I’ll clean it up, god!” I know what she needs is, she needs it to be orderly and I don’t need that, and I don’t care about it, and so I’m only doing it for her. I found when we got to really be — because we’re both putting up these huge walls for a couple episodes — when we finally rode in the car and we’re really vulnerable, and you break down crying and you’re like, “I’m really scared.” And it’s the first moment where it’s OK, I get to be a big sister right now. There is not a wall between us. She’s let down. She’s asking for some reassurance, and I think it feels so good to Nicky to be able to sister her in that moment.

These are two women whom society deems villainous. There is a ‘bad mom’ who loses her kid. That is just- you’re written off. That shame, that scarlet letter, that’s with you forever. And then on the other side, Chloe is this very ambitious social-climbing leader who’s just got a target on her to just take her down. We don’t love to see women [succeed]. It’s a vulnerable place to get to the top.

Elizabeth Banks

DEADLINE: The show touches on domestic violence in a way that feels very unexpected and really authentic. It starts with a push and then escalates. How did you approach shooting that and getting into that headspace?

BIEL: Yeah, that particular scene, [the violence] spouts out of nowhere, and it happens in the other sequence where there’s some major violence. But I feel like that that’s kind of how those things happen, where it’s something, and then before you know it, boom, something big happens. So how did we approach it? I mean, I think we walked through it really step-by-step. Corey knew what he was doing, I knew what I was doing, we knew how to protect each other and keep each other safe. And once that trust is there, once that safety is there, I know he’s going to help me and keep me safe, and then you can kind of just let it go and really explore how far does it go, and what could possibly happen in a hot ticket moment like that. It’s definitely an intense experience for sure, anytime you’re exploring that kind of thing. It was also a really important moment because you’re finally getting to see why she’s keeping so many secrets. Because this coming out, this being exposed in some way, it’s the end of her career, nobody trusts this woman ever again. No one’s going to listen to her, care about her books, or care about her standing up in court for people, she’s a liar, she’s a faker, she’s a fraud. So, it’s a painful thing, you know? I think it’s really painful for her to go through that, and then literally walk away from it and go, why do I let myself, why? I am that person? She spent so long proving to people that she’s just not that person. It’s such a fraud. I can’t even imagine how awful that would feel.

DEADLINE: Something that really struck me is that there are characters who are really twisted and deeply manipulative, sociopathic, even. They walk among us. It’s pretty thought-provoking. What did you take away from it?

BANKS: I love that you sensed that in the writing because I actually felt so much of it was so nuanced. One of the other things I loved about it was these are two women whom society deems villainous. There is a ‘bad mom’ who loses her kid. That is just — you’re written off. That shame, that scarlet letter, that’s with you forever. And then on the other side, Chloe is this very ambitious social-climbing leader who’s just got a target on her to just take her down. We don’t love to see women [succeed]. It’s a vulnerable place to get to the top. And I love that they have so much shame that they’re sharing, and that they’re both targets, that society writ large is actually their common enemy in a way. And they’re both just fighting, clawing their way through a system that wants to dispose of them. And I found that really powerful to play against.

DEADLINE: This show is led by female creatives, female heads of department, and it’s a story about women ultimately pulling the strings. How does it feel to represent that?

BANKS: It’s a dream. It really is fun. This is based on a book written by a woman, it was adapted by women, it’s about women, it stars women. It kind of was what it was the whole time — just to say there was no grand plan of “Let’s go represent how it can be done in our business.” But of course, we love that it was done this way, and we are excited that we were a part of it. And it was super collaborative. It was a dreamy experience. I don’t know if that’s because it was all female-led, but I can tell you that a bunch of moms got together and got sh*t done and made this thing happen, and everybody went home for dinner at night and it was pretty great. That’s what happened.

DEADLINE: You’ve got to get that on a T-shirt.

BANKS: Yeah – “A bunch of moms got sh*t done.”

DEADLINE: What do you think you’ve both taken away from the experience of making this?

BANKS: A friend in Jessica Biel. A friend forever, truly.

BIEL: Truly.

BANKS: [Laughs] Tickets to Justin [Timberlake]’s shows. An ‘in’ at one very nice, cool camp in Massachusetts if we need to get in for the kids.

BIEL: Yep. And I think, truly, a lot of friends that I think we’ll have for a long time and be able to hopefully collaborate with again.

The Better Sister is currently streaming on Prime Video.