Jessica Biel has already stabbed a man to death for mysterious reasons and (allegedly) murdered her neighbor. In her latest TV series, she’s playing
Jessica Biel has already stabbed a man to death for mysterious reasons and (allegedly) murdered her neighbor. In her latest TV series, she’s playing another troubled woman: a high-profile media executive who may or may not have killed her husband.
“When you line ’em up like that, it’s like, Okay, what is wrong with you? What is your problem?’” says Biel with a slight smirk. But the reality is that the actor is finally getting a chance to dig into engaging, challenging roles, playing women who are harboring secrets and turmoil beneath their pristine surfaces.
Her latest project, The Better Sister, an adaptation of a popular 2019 novel, centers on Biel’s Chloe—who lives a seemingly perfect life with her lawyer husband and her son. But after the husband (Corey Stoll) is brutally murdered in their home, Chloe’s estranged sister (Elizabeth Banks) comes to town, and their long-hidden family secrets bubble to the surface.
Hitting Prime Video on May 29, The Better Sister is a gripping mystery built around Biel’s performance as a woman who appears perfectly poised, before Biel slowly peels back her layers. “I just felt interested in this complicated woman who had this past she wanted to hide, and had all these big secrets,” she tells Vanity Fair. “I’m curious about humans who make really weird choices in moments of chaos, and in moments of extreme violence.”
Biel, who first broke out on the TV series 7th Heaven, spent decades on the large screen, appearing in films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Illusionist, and Total Recall. But her latest chapter has been her most engaging, as she and her production company have helped produce gripping whodunnit television shows including 2019’s Limetown, 2021’s Cruel Summer, and 2022’s Candy (starring Biel as one of her many murderers). These small-screen dramas have allowed Biel to reveal her many colors and stand at the center of a story—an opportunity she’s been waiting for her whole career.
“For so long, I really didn’t have the opportunity to play any parts like this. I was not really getting those chances,” she says. “So I think I was just making up for some lost time.”
Biel was just 14 when she was cast in the TV series 7th Heaven. She starred on the wholesome drama about a Protestant minister, his wife, and their seven kids as sweet eldest daughter Mary Camden. After the fourth season (and a slight scandal when she did a racy photoshoot for Gear magazine), Biel ended up leaving the show early to attend Tufts University in Massachusetts, appearing only occasionally on the hit show for the remainder of its 11-season run.
Still, Biel appeared in 134 episodes of 7th Heaven altogether—spending many of her teen years making the show. Maybe that’s why, for years, she thought she’d never return to TV. “When I was coming up in this business, you were either a television actor or a film actor, you very rarely did a crossover,” she says. Biel says Friends star Jennifer Aniston was one of the few examples of an actor who successfully bounced between the large and diminutive screen. “She was my idol,” says Biel. “I was like, Oh my God, if only I could do this the way she’s doing it.”
After she headlined the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hollywood suddenly saw Biel in a novel lithe. “I jumped into a whole genre different than anything you’d ever seen me do before, and I feel like that was probably what got people to stop thinking about me as just a kid who was on TV,” she says. For years afterward, she focused on her movie career, doing big-budget projects like 2004’s Blade: Trinity with Wesley Snipes; ensemble comedies like 2010’s Valentine’s Day and 2011’s New Year’s Eve; and independent films like 2013’s The Truth About Emanuel and 2016’s A Kind of Murder. “I was like, I’m never going back to television, ever. I’m never doing that,” she says.
Then her business partner Michelle Purple asked Biel to consider the streaming world. New platforms had opened up novel opportunities; she wanted their production company, Iron Ocean, to consider developing stories for television.
“I literally was like, ‘You are out of your mind. I’m never going back to television. I told you that,’” Biel remembers saying. But Biel eventually changed her tune. She and Purple began developing The Sinner, an anthology named for Petra Hammesfahr’s 1999 novel, which inspired the first season. That initial season series starred Bill Pullman as a detective trying to figure out why a woman (Biel) had stabbed a man to death in broad daylight.
The USA Network show debuted to critical acclaim and robust ratings, and earned Biel nominations at the Golden Globes and Emmys. The network renewed the show for three more seasons, and finally put some momentum behind Biel’s production company. “I was super nervous about it. I was like, I hope this doesn’t end my career,” she says. “It was just new, how we were experiencing television was so different from what I knew growing up.”
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