They’re not associated, however from the primary time they sat down to debate their roles in Prime Video’s home thriller, The Higher Sister, Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks clicked in a method that carried via to their performances, each actresses mentioned on Sunday at Deadline Contenders TV.
“I felt, like, a right away connection the primary time we had lunch collectively,” Biel mentioned at a panel with Banks and co-showrunners and government producers, Olivia Milch and Regina Corrado. Banks agreed, saying, “I felt like the massive sister instantly.”
The 2 actresses, who’re additionally government producers on the present, mentioned Biel’s anxieties about sending her son off to camp for the primary time — an expertise that Banks was in a position to converse to knowledgeably as a mom whose youngsters are older. “I used to be the youthful sister, she was the older sister, and that’s simply the dynamic,” Biel mentioned.
Based mostly on the bestseller by crime novelist and former prosecutor Alafair Burke, the sequence follows a profitable New York Metropolis profession girl, Chloe (Biel), and her older however struggling alcoholic sibling, Nicky (Banks), as their already strained relationship is rocked by the homicide of Chloe’s lawyer husband, Adam (Corey Stoll). Suspicion falls on Ethan (Maxwell Acee Donovan), the teen-aged son that Adam had with Nicky — sure, Nicky — earlier than they divorced and Adam, having gained outright custody of Ethan, married “up,” wedding ceremony Nicky’s extra completed sister Chloe.
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Chloe — abruptly, violently widowed — is left alone to take care of the nephew whom she was serving to to boost as a son, and who’s now below investigation for having probably killed his personal father. As Chloe’s dream life unravels, she finds herself thrown again into shut quarters with estranged sister Nicky. Collectively, they attempt to work via previous conflicts and resentments to uncover the reality behind the demise of a person they each knew — or thought they knew — intimately.
The Contenders TV viewers in Los Angeles bought an early, unique take a look at a clip from the present, earlier than all eight episodes drop Could 29 on Prime Video.
Milch raved about Burke’s “twisty, turny, wonderful” novel and mentioned that when Tomorrow Studios acquired the rights, she and Corrado discovered themselves with a possibility to do what they love: “telling tales about glorious, sophisticated girls.”
The added dimension of a household historical past sophisticated by alcoholism was one other attraction for the pair.
“I feel the factor that actually caught with us once I was studying was this concept that siblings get completely different variations of their mother and father relying on start order, and that shapes your id,” Milch mentioned. “It shapes the way you conceive of your self, the way you conceive of your sibling, and notably if there’s a second of sobriety for a mother or father. You realize, I used to be 10 when my dad bought sober. My sister was 15, my brother was 13. We had very completely different experiences and recollections of our childhood, and that’s at play for these characters as nicely, for Nicky and Chloe.”
“Additionally, what’s extra savage than household?” Corrado added.
Biel additionally praised the female-led workforce behind The Higher Sister, calling herself “fortunate” to work with “all these main females on the heads of all these unbelievable departments.”
Milch recalled “an actual sense of affection and camaraderie and neighborhood” on set, “and perhaps rather less ego than perhaps you typically really feel when there’s different dynamics at play.”
Test again on Monday for the panel video.
