‘The Better Sister’ Creators on Creating a ‘Greek Tragedy’ and Striking Gold With Elizabeth Banks and Jessica Biel
Elizabeth Banks thinks her new murder-mystery show “The Better Sister” has a few things in common with Shakespeare.
“I felt like this entire endeavor was like a Greek tragedy,” Banks said at “The Better Sister” FYC event moderated by Variety‘s Emily Longeretta ahead of the show’s May 29 Prime Video premiere. “This has all the elements that Shakespeare was writing about. We’ve got these sisters sharing the same husband, we’ve got the murdered body [and] we’ve got the son living in the shadow of his father.”
Based on Alafair Burke’s 2019 novel, “The Better Sister” follows estranged sisters Nicky (Banks) and Chloe (Jessica Biel) who find their lives forced back together after Adam (Corey Stoll), Chloe’s lawyer husband, is unexpectedly murdered. The cast is rounded out by Maxwell Acee, Gabriel Sloyer, Kim Dickens and Bobby Naderi.
For a show all about sisterhood, finding the right women to play Nicky and Chloe was key. Co-showrunner and executive producer Olivia Milch recalls the first time they put Banks’ and Biel’s faces next to each other after a long casting process.
“We thought, are we geniuses? I mean, this is unbelievable,” Milch said. “It’s uncanny, but it had to be that alchemy. It had to be right.”
While both Banks and Beil read Burke’s novel right away, Beil also recalls how helpful it was to have all eight scripts ready to read during casting discussions. That helped her get a real sense of Nicky and Chloe’s dynamic.
“You normally don’t get that,” Beil said. “Normally, you might get to read one or maybe nothing and you have to, then, be sort of pitched as to what’s going to happen. And this was very different. It was all laid out so you could really, go, OK. I see what this is.”
Aside from the two sisters, “The Better Sister” also has a larger ensemble cast that gets wrapped up into the murder mystery. For co-showrunner and executive producer Regina Corrado, the “dysfunction” of the central alcoholic family drew her into the story.
“I find that very interesting to create characters with aspects of each one of those personalities that are born and bred in those environments,” Corrado said. “If you look at these guys, objectively, you could see that they fall into those categories: The rescuer, the mess.”
Beyond the underlying themes of family and deception, Banks just wants audiences to be entertained.
“I want people to be thrilled,” Banks said. “The cliffhangers are cliff-hanging! They’re so juicy and good and the surprises keep coming. I love that everybody’s a suspect so, if you’re entertained, all the other stuff that we’re doing is sticker.”
“I felt like this entire endeavor was like a Greek tragedy,” Banks said at “The Better Sister” FYC event moderated by Variety‘s Emily Longeretta ahead of the show’s May 29 Prime Video premiere. “This has all the elements that Shakespeare was writing about. We’ve got these sisters sharing the same husband, we’ve got the murdered body [and] we’ve got the son living in the shadow of his father.”
Based on Alafair Burke’s 2019 novel, “The Better Sister” follows estranged sisters Nicky (Banks) and Chloe (Jessica Biel) who find their lives forced back together after Adam (Corey Stoll), Chloe’s lawyer husband, is unexpectedly murdered. The cast is rounded out by Maxwell Acee, Gabriel Sloyer, Kim Dickens and Bobby Naderi.
For a show all about sisterhood, finding the right women to play Nicky and Chloe was key. Co-showrunner and executive producer Olivia Milch recalls the first time they put Banks’ and Biel’s faces next to each other after a long casting process.
“We thought, are we geniuses? I mean, this is unbelievable,” Milch said. “It’s uncanny, but it had to be that alchemy. It had to be right.”
While both Banks and Beil read Burke’s novel right away, Beil also recalls how helpful it was to have all eight scripts ready to read during casting discussions. That helped her get a real sense of Nicky and Chloe’s dynamic.
“You normally don’t get that,” Beil said. “Normally, you might get to read one or maybe nothing and you have to, then, be sort of pitched as to what’s going to happen. And this was very different. It was all laid out so you could really, go, OK. I see what this is.”
Aside from the two sisters, “The Better Sister” also has a larger ensemble cast that gets wrapped up into the murder mystery. For co-showrunner and executive producer Regina Corrado, the “dysfunction” of the central alcoholic family drew her into the story.
“I find that very interesting to create characters with aspects of each one of those personalities that are born and bred in those environments,” Corrado said. “If you look at these guys, objectively, you could see that they fall into those categories: The rescuer, the mess.”
Beyond the underlying themes of family and deception, Banks just wants audiences to be entertained.
“I want people to be thrilled,” Banks said. “The cliffhangers are cliff-hanging! They’re so juicy and good and the surprises keep coming. I love that everybody’s a suspect so, if you’re entertained, all the other stuff that we’re doing is sticker.”