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For Elizabeth Banks, The Better Sister was a case of art imitating life, as she quickly settled into her sisterly dynamic with co-star Jessica Biel.
“It came really easily to us, and I think it’s because I make fun of my sisters, and I have a really good time making fun of Jessica Biel,” Banks, who is the firstborn in her own family, tells SheKnows of playing Biel’s big sister.
In the Prime Video series, which adapts Alafair Burke’s 2019 book of the same name, Banks plays Nicky, a recovering addict whose estranged sister married her ex-husband and is raising her son. When her son is arrested for the murder of his father, she reconnects with her younger sister, Chloe (Biel), to help prove his innocence.
“I’m a big sister, so I’m also a real know-it-all,” Banks jokes. “She was a puppet of mine. Basically, I have the moral high ground. Which is also always fun to play because she’s stole my husband and my child.”
“I did that,” Biel chimed in.
The show is a gripping whodunnit about mothers doing everything they can to protect their son but Banks’ character adds comedy in ways only Banks could through her below-the-belt jabs at Biel’s uptight Chloe.
“That’s what sisters are,” Banks said. “They know all the buttons to push, and the job of being a great sister is knowing when to push and when you’ve gone too far. Every once in a while, we went too far, and we had to figure out how to repair it. And this is about two people who have really gone too far, and now they have to figure out how to repair this thing and back each other up in a way that they’ve never had to do before.”
Biel’s character has more layers to unpack. As a high-powered executive who appears to have moved in on her brother-in-law as soon as her sister began to have addiction issues, it would be easy to dislike her from the jump but much of the show’s mystery is built around the reality behind Chloe’s fragile, forward-facing persona.
“I love characters that hold multiple secrets. You know, that is something that’s always so interesting and intriguing to explore,” Biel says. “What do we do when we’re pushed up against the wall and you’re asked to to explor, how far would you go to protect your son, protect your family, to protect your sister, whatever it is.”
At a May 21 premiere of the show, Biel also told us that the show opened up a world of concerns about raising teens. The actress, who shares 10-year-old Silas and 4-year-old Phineas with husband Justin Timberlake, has several more years to go before her sons are the same age as her onscreen son, Ethan (Maxwell Acee Donovan) but that didn’t make the role any less eye-opening about the challenges of protecting teen kids.
“I just was terrified every day,” Biel said. “I’m like, Oh my, is this the reality that I’m stepping into?”
“Thinking about how social media can affect kids, thinking about the pressure of being young, of camera phones everywhere, of children not being allowed to fail,” Biel told us.
“As a mom, I think about that a lot, this show, and this experience being Max’s mom, one of Max’s moms, yeah, it kind of brought that really, to home, and thinking about how I’m stepping into these tougher years.”
The Better Sister is streaming now on Prime Video.
Before you go, click here to see more shows about the complexities of motherhood.
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