Azealia Banks and Bebe Rexha clash in vicious online feud: 'You might wanna jump on some type of therapy'
If Azealia Banks and Bebe Rexha's relationship were a song, it would be sung by Ariana Grande: "We Can't Be Friends."
The "212" rapper and "Meant to Be" singer engaged in a public spat on Monday, following Banks' unprovoked critique of Rexha's physical appearance at the 2025 Met Gala.
"Sis gives me - hormonal birth control implant or something," Banks wrote on X Monday evening, in response to a photo of Rexha arriving at the annual fundraising celebration wearing a black Christian Siriano ensemble. "It's giving implanon/nuvaring she needs removed or depo shot that needs to stop happening."
Rexha responded the following morning, suggesting that Banks "might wanna jump on some type of therapy," and snarking that the antidepressant "lexapro worked great for me. Something that helps with the deep rooted sadness and chaos you keep projecting. Healing looks good on everyone. Try it."
A few minutes after sharing her response, Rexha posted again, hoping to draw the back-and-forth to a close: "Ok I'm gonna go and enjoy my day now ❤️ Have a good day everyone love you."
In a third post that has since been deleted, Rexha, 35, opened up about weathering constant criticism of her appearance and explained that she has a health condition.
"I'm so tired of people commenting on my weight. I have PCOS and struggle with infertility," she wrote, referring to polycystic ovary syndrome, a hormonal disorder that presents challenges Rexha has been open about in the past. She continued, "I got pregnant, and it didn't work out and I've been carrying that pain in silence. I never owed anyone that truth, but maybe now you'll think twice before commenting on anyone's body."Rexha's attempt to shut down the conflict was only successful on her end, however, as Banks fired off several lengthy responses on Tuesday.
"You should really get off Lexapro lmao, weight gain is a TRADEMARK side effect of Lexapro," Banks wrote in one, referring back to Rexha's original response. In another, she offered to be Rexha's "support sister if u need it's honestly nothing to be ashamed of because trust me... The problems that come from ssri's are a lot LOT worse than anything you feel you are going thru now."
Banks' comments toward Rexha were part of a larger running commentary she posted in reaction to pictures from the Met Gala's red carpet, which this year was tinted a deep shade of blue, courtesy of artist Cy Gavin.
The New York City-born musician, 33, had praise for Nicki Minaj's Thom Browne look ("Ok now that we can see the boning this look is a serrrve," compared Sabrina Carpenter to Lil' Kim ("This is very Notorious K.I.M. coded"), and had a mixed reaction to an image of Katy Perry look that was later found to be AI-generated ("Katy just gives me evil Madonna levels of behind the scenes corporate sabotage").
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
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Los Angeles Times
42 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
‘Somebody hug me!' 7 Emmy hopefuls on staying calm, hitting their marks and more
The Emmys' limited series/TV movie acting categories have come to represent some of the best and most-talked-about shows on television, and this year's crop of contenders is no exception. The seven actors who joined the 2025 Envelope Roundtable were Javier Bardem, who plays father, victim and alleged molester Jose Menendez in Netflix's 'Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story'; Renée Zellweger, who reprises her role as the British romantic heroine in 'Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy'; Stephen Graham, who co-created and stars in 'Adolescence' as the father of a teenage boy who commits a heinous murder; Jenny Slate, who plays the best friend of a terminally ill woman in FX's 'Dying for Sex'; Brian Tyree Henry, who portrays a man posing as a federal agent in order to rip off drug dealers in Apple TV+'s 'Dope Thief'; Elizabeth Banks, who takes on the role of an estranged sibling and recovering alcoholic in Prime Video's 'The Better Sister'; and Sacha Baron Cohen, who appears as the deceived husband of a successful filmmaker in Apple TV+'s 'Disclaimer.' The Times' news and culture critic Lorraine Ali spoke to the group about the emotional fallout of a heavy scene, the art of defying expectations and more. Read highlights from their conversation below and watch video of the roundtable above. Many of you move between drama and comedy. People often think, 'Drama's very serious and difficult, comedy's light and easy.' Is that true? Banks: I think the degree of difficulty with comedy is much higher. It's really hard to sustainably make people laugh over time, whereas [with] drama, everyone relates to loss and pining for love that's unrequited. Not everybody has great timing or is funny or gets satire. Henry: There's something fun about how closely intertwined they are. In my series, I'm playing a heroin addict running for my life, and I have this codependency with this friend … There's a scene where I've been looking for him, and I'm high out of my mind, and I find him in my attic, and all he's talking about is how he has to take a s—. And I'm like, 'But they're trying to kill us.' You just see him wincing and going through all these [groans]. It is so funny, but at the same time, you're just terrified for both. There's always humor somewhere in the drama. Banks: There's a reason why the theater [symbol] is a happy face/sad face. They're very intertwined. Renée, with Bridget Jones — how has she changed over the last 25 years and where is she now with 'Mad About the Boy'? Zellweger: Nobody's the same from one moment to the next, one chapter to the next and certainly not from one year to the next. It's been a really interesting sort of experiment to revisit a character in the different phases of her life. What I'm really grateful for is that the timing runs in parallel to the sort of experiences that you have in your early 20s, 30s and so on. With each iteration, I don't have to pretend that I'm less than I am, because I don't want to be the character that I was, or played, when she was 29, 35. I don't want to do that, and I certainly don't want to do that now. So it was really nice to meet her again in this place of what she's experiencing in the moment, which is bereavement and the loss of her great love, and being a mom, and trying to be responsible, and reevaluating what she values, and how she comports herself, and what's important and all of that, because, of course, I relate to that in this moment. Stephen, 'Adolescence' follows a family dealing with the fallout of their 13-year-old son being accused of a brutal murder. You direct and star in the series. What was it like being immersed in such heavy subject matter? Did it come home with you? Graham: We did that first episode, the end of it was quite heavy and quite emotional. When we said, 'Cut,' all of us older actors and the crew were very emotional. There were hugs and a bit of applause. And then everyone would be like, 'Where's Owen?' [Cooper, the teenage actor who plays Graham's character's son]. 'Is Owen OK? Is he with his child psychologist?' No, Owen's upstairs playing swing ball with his tutor. It was like OK, that's the way to do this — not to take myself too seriously when we say, 'Cut,' but when I am there, immerse myself in it. Let's be honest, we can all be slightly self-obsessed. My missus, she's the best for me because I'd phone her and say, 'I had a really tough day. I had to cry all day. My wife's died of cancer, and it was a really tough one.' She goes, 'The dog s— all over the living room. I had to go shopping and the f— bag split when I got to Tesco. There was a flat tire. They've let the kids out of school early because there's been a flood. And you've had a hard day pretending to be sad?' Bardem: I totally agree with what Stephen says. You have a life with your family and your children that you have to really pay attention to. This is a job, and you just do the job as good as you can with your own limitations. You put everything into it when they say, 'Action,' and when you're out, you just leave it behind. Otherwise, it's too much. Certain scenes, certain moments stay with you because we work with what we are. But I think it doesn't make you a better actor to really stay in character, as they say, for 24 hours. That doesn't work for me. It actually makes me feel very confused if I do that. On the show 'Monsters' I tried to protect Cooper [Koch] and Nicholas [Alexander Chavez], the actors who play the children, because they were carrying the heavy weight on the show every day. I was trying to make them feel protected and loved and accompanied by us, the adults, and let them know that we are there for them and that this is fiction. Because they were going really deep into it, and they did an amazing job. Elizabeth, in 'The Better Sister,' you portray Nicky, a sister estranged from her sibling who's been through quite a bit of her own trauma. Banks: I play a drunk who's lost her child and her husband, basically, to her little sister, played by Jessica Biel. She is grappling with trauma from her childhood, which she's trying not to bring forward. She's been working [with] Alcoholics Anonymous, an incredible program, to get through her stuff. But she's also a fish out of water when she visits her sister, who [lives in a] very rarefied New York, literary, fancy rich world. My character basically lives in a trailer park in Ohio. There's a lot going on. And there's a murder mystery. I loved the complication … but it brought up all of those things for me. I do think you absolutely leave most of that [heaviness] on set. You are mining it all for the character work, so you've got to find it, but I don't need to then infect my own children with it. Sacha, you have played and created these really gregarious characters like Ali G or Borat. Your character in 'Disclaimer,' he's not a character you created, but he is very understated. Was that a challenge? Cohen: It took me a long time to work out who the character was. I said to [director] Alfonso [Cuarón], 'I don't understand why this guy goes on that journey from where we see him in Act 1.' For me it was, how do you make this person unique? We worked a lot through the specificity of what words he uses and what he actually says to explain and give hints for me as an actor. A lot of that was Alfonso Cuarón saying, 'Take it down.' And there was a lot of rewriting and loads of drafts before I even understood how this guy reacts to the news and information that he believes about his wife. Jenny, 'Dying for Sex' is based on a true story about two friends. One has terminal cancer, and the other — your character — supports her right up until the end. Talk about what it was like to play that role in a series that alternates between biting humor and deep grief. Slate: Michelle Williams, who does a brilliant job in this show, her energy is extending outward and [her character] is trying to experiment before she does the greatest experiment of all, which is to cross over into the other side. My character is really out there, not out there willy-nilly, but she will yell at people if they are being rude, wasteful or if she feels it's unjust. [And she's] going from blasting to taking all that energy and making it this tight laser, and pointing it right into care, and knowing more about herself at the end. I am a peppy person, and I felt so excited to have the job that a lot of my day started with calming myself down. I'm at work with Michelle Williams and Sissy Spacek and Liz Meriwether and Shannon Murphy and being, like, 'Siri, set a meditation timer for 10 minutes,' and making myself do alternate nostril breathing [exercises]. Brian, many people came to know you from your role as Paper Boi in 'Atlanta.' The series was groundbreaking and like nothing else on television. What was it like moving out of that world and onto other projects? Henry: People really thought that I was this rapper that they pulled off the street from Atlanta. To me, that's the greatest compliment … When I did 'Bullet Train,' I was shocked at how many people thought I was British. I was like, 'Oh, right. Now I've twisted your mind this way.' I was [the voice of] Megatron at one point, and now I've twisted your mind that way. My path in is always going to be stretching people's imaginations, because they get so attached to characters that I've played that they really believe that I'm that person. People feel like they have an ownership of who you are. I love the challenge of having to force the imaginations of the viewers and myself to see me in a departure [from] what they saw me [as] previously. Because I realize that when I walk in a room, before I even open my mouth, there's 90 different things that are put on me or taken away from me because of how I look and how I carry myself. Javier, since doing the series are you now frequently asked about your own opinions on the Menendez case? The brothers claim their father molested them, and that is in part what led to them murdering their parents. Bardem: I don't think anybody knows. That's the point. That was the great thing about playing that character, is you have to play it in a way that it's not obvious that he did those things that he was accused of, because nobody knows, but at the same time you have to make people believe that he was capable. I did say to Ryan [Murphy] that I can't do a scene with a kid. Because in the beginning, they do drafts, and there were certain moments where I said, 'I can't. It's not needed.' The only moment that I had a hard time was when [Jose] has to face [his] young kid. It was only a moment where Jose was mean to him. That's not in my nature. Henry: I discovered, while doing my series, 'My body doesn't know this isn't real.' There's an episode where I'm shot in the leg, and I'm bleeding out and I'm on all this different morphine and drugs and all this stuff, and I'm literally lying on this ground, take after take, having to mime this. To go through the delusion of this pain ... in the middle of the takes, it was just so crazy. I would literally look at the crew and say, 'Somebody hug me! Somebody!' Stephen, that scene where you confront the boys in the parking lot with the bike, I was just like, 'Oh, my God, how many times did he have to do that?' This kid gets in your face, and I was like, 'Punch the kid!' My heart went out to you, man, not just as the character but as you being in there. Graham: Because we did it all in one take, we had that unique quality. You're using the best of two mediums. You've got that beauty and that spontaneity and that reality of the theater, and then you have the naturalism and the truth that we have with film and television. So by the time I get to that final bit, we've been through all those emotions. When I open the door and go into [Jamie's] room, everything's shaken. But it's not you. It's an out-of-body experience and just comes from somewhere else. Bardem: Listen, we don't do brain surgery, but let's give ourselves some credit. We are generous in what we do because we are putting our bodies into an experience. We are doing this for something bigger than us, and that is the story that we're telling. What have been some of the more challenging or difficult moments for you, either in your career or your recent series? Zellweger: Trying not to do what you're feeling in the moment sometimes, because it's not appropriate to what you're telling. That happens in most shows, most things that you do. I think everybody experiences it where you're bringing something from home and it doesn't belong on the set. It's impossible to leave it behind when you walk in because it's bigger than you are in that moment. Banks: I would say that the thing that I worked on the most for 'The Better Sister' was [understanding] sobriety. I'm not sober. I love a bubbly rosé. So it really did bring up how much I think about drinking and how social it is and what that ritual is for me, and how this character is thinking about it every day and deciding every day to stay sober or not. I am also a huge fan of AA and sobriety programs. I think they're incredible tools for everybody who works those programs. I was grateful for the access to all of that as I was making the series. But that's what you get to do in TV. You get to explore episode by episode. You get to play out a lot more than just three acts. Stephen, about the continuous single shot. It seems like it's an incredibly difficult and complex way to shoot a series. Why do it? Graham: It's exceptionally difficult, I'm not going to lie. It's like a swan glides across the water beautifully, but the legs are going rapidly underneath. A lot of it is done in preparation. We spend a whole week learning the script, and then the second week is just with the camera crew and the rest of the crew. It's a choreography that you work out, getting an idea of where they want the camera to go, and the opportunity to embody the space ourselves. Cohen: That reminds me of a bit of doing the undercover movies that I do because you have one take. ... I did a scene where I'm wearing a bulletproof vest. There were a lot of the people in the audience who'd gone to this rally, a lot of them had machine guns. We knew they were going to get angry, but you've got to do the scene. You've got one time to get the scene right. But you also go, 'OK, those guys have got guns. They're trying to storm the stage. I haven't quite finished the scene. When do I leave?' But you've got to get the scene. I could get shot, but that's not important. Henry: There's a certain level of sociopathy. Slate: I feel like I'm never on my mark, and it was always a very kind camera operator being like, 'Hey, Jenny, you weren't in the shot shoulder-wise.' I feel like such an idiot. Part of it is working through lifelong, longstanding feelings of 'I'm a fool and my foolishness is going to make people incredibly angry with me.' And then really still wanting to participate and having no real certainty that I'm going to be able to do anything but just make all of my fears real. Part of the thing that I love about performance is I just want to experience the version of myself that does not collapse into useless fragments when I face the thing that scares me the most. I do that, and then I feel the appetite for performance again. Do you see yourself in roles when you're watching other people's films or TV show? Graham: At the end of the day, we're all big fans of acting. That's why we do it. Because when we were young, we were inspired by people on the screen, or we were inspired by places where we could put ourselves and lose our imaginations. We have a lot of t— in this industry. But I think if we fight hard enough, we can come through. Do you know what I mean? It's people that are here for the right reasons. It's a collective. Acting is not a game of golf. It's a team. It's in front and it's behind the camera. I think it's important that we nourish that. Henry: And remember that none of us are t—. Bardem: What is a t—? I may be one of them and I don't know it. Graham: I'll explain it to you later.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
'Ballerina 'director breaks down the ending and its 'brutal' consequences for John Wick and Eve
This article contains spoilers for Eve's (Ana de Armas) fight has only just begun by the end of Ballerina. The John Wick spinoff movie introduces a new ruthless assassin on a quest for vengeance, and director Len Wiseman tells Entertainment Weekly that there's so much more yet to come with Eve's story after this movie. And despite Keanu Reeves' titular killer advising her multiple times to walk away from this life, she continues to dive deeper into the world of contract killings even after she finally gets her revenge. "She's checked herself into the Continental, and her next move is really sorting out how her whole life has been a lie," Wiseman tells EW of where Eve goes from here. "She now understands what her father was really doing for her, understands where she came from, and decided, 'I've made a choice. I've got the answers that I needed, but there are consequences in this world.'" If Ballerina gets a sequel to continue exploring that open-ended conclusion, the director says it will need to unpack the fallout from Eve's choices. "She has to now deal with the consequences that John Wick laid out to her, that Winston [Ian McShane] laid out to her," Wiseman says. "It is a brutal world. You don't walk off into the sunset very easily. And so now Eve's next move is how to deal with the consequences of her actions in this [movie]." Ballerina is essentially Eve's origin story, beginning with her tragic childhood. When her father (David Castañeda) is killed in front of her, she's given over to the Ruska Roma for training in both killing and ballet. Twelve years later, she graduates to become a hired gun. Only two months into her new career, she discovers a clue about who really killed her father, motivating her to find and punish the mysterious cult of assassins responsible for his death. While the Ruska Roma's Director (Anjelica Huston) tries to dissuade Eve from seeking revenge, she immediately goes rogue, getting intel from New York's Continental owner Winston that helps her track down the tribe's leader, the Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne), and his entire town of trained assassins. While fighting her way through the town, Eve learns she was actually stolen away from this place when she was a child by her father, who wanted her to have a better, less violent life. That's why the Chancellor had her father killed, to punish him for kidnapping Eve. She also meets her long-lost older sister Lena (Catalina Sandino Moreno) in the town, but she's killed pretty quickly — no emotional hugs here. Eventually, the Baba Yaga himself, John Wick, is sent to kill Eve to stop her from causing a war between the Ruska Roma and the Chancellor's gang of killers, who have had a truce for over 100 years. But John doesn't follow through on his contract, instead helping Eve kill the Chancellor and save a little girl named Ella (Ava Joyce McCarthy) from a life of murder. Eve helps Ella reunite with her father, Daniel (Norman Reedus), ultimately finding redemption for her own tragic childhood. It's not a totally happy ending, though, since Eve discovers at the very end of the movie that a contract has been put out on her for $5 million, forcing her into action once again. Her original mission may have ended, but her troubles are only just beginning. "The Chancellor relates to her at the ending that this cycle will continue: 'You kill me, you've cut the head of the snake, but the body still lives,'" Wiseman says. "There will be ramifications of that. And she didn't kill the entire village." The filmmaker would love to explore what would happen if Eve's mother isn't actually dead, as everyone believes. What if she returns to see her entire home destroyed and Lena dead?"If I really were to get my full fantasy of that, her mother would discover that village and see it decimated and her daughter has been killed, so the ramifications can come in many different forms," Wiseman says. "And also, is John completely off the hook for helping her out at the end? He technically was going by the rules in a sense, but he kind of fudged the rules a little bit. I don't think anybody gets off kindly in this world." The director thought it was a no-brainer that John defied his orders and helped Eve in her mission instead of killing her, especially considering that this movie takes place between John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4. "It comes down to John and what John has gone through in his life and what circumstances he's been put in at this point," Wiseman says. "And there's an understanding of how sometimes this life takes things from you. He was somebody that is having to deal with the consequences of the revenge path that he went on and what he had lost, and so it really is him seeing a bit of himself in her and how personal it is and what has been destroyed about her life. So he feels for her in that moment." Ballerina is now playing in theaters. Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘The Better Sister': Jessica Biel, Elizabeth Banks on Wanting the Audience to Root for Their 'Messy' Characters and That 'Rallying Cry' Ending
[This story contains spoilers from all eight episodes of Prime Video's .] What's a family without some drama? But add in a murder, lingering secrets and scandals and you get the recipe for Prime Video's The Better Sister starring Elizabeth Banks and Jessica Biel. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'The Better Sister' Stars React to Murder Mystery Reveal: "They Totally Threw Me Off and I Was There" 'Lee Soo Man: King of K-Pop' Director and Subject Talk New Prime Video Documentary Nicole Clemens Hired to Head Amazon MGM's International Originals Biel and Banks star in the eight-episode series, from showrunners Olivia Milch and Regina Corrado and adapted from Alafair Burke's novel of the same name, as estranged sisters Chloe Taylor (Biel) and Nicky Macintosh (Banks) who despite living opposite lives — Chloe leads a picturesque existence with her lawyer husband Adam (Corey Stoll) and teenage son Ethan (Maxwell Acee Donovan), while Nicky struggles to stay clean — must come together when Chloe's husband is murdered. To make matters more complicated, Nicky is also Adam's ex and Ethan's biological mother. While viewers follow the mystery of who killed Adam, they get glimpses into Nick and Chloe's harrowing past, trauma and the mistakes that haunt them. Depicting this estranged relationship, the power of sisterhood and motherhood and flawed human beings all drew Biel and Banks to the series. 'I saw myself in both of these women,' Biel tells The Hollywood Reporter. 'It's like two opposite forces coming together.' 'It felt like Greek tragedy to me,' Banks adds. 'I, for one, felt like it's going to be really satisfying for the audience to watch them struggle to build this family back up, knowing all the history and the secrets that they hold. We want the audience to root for them, like a love story, to figure out how to be together and be connected as a family again.' Ahead of the premiere, Biel and Banks spoke with THR about portraying the secretive sisters, showcasing 'unlikable women' taking on a system attempting to tear them down, the series' twists and turns and why that surprise ending felt like a 'rallying cry.' How did this project come to you, and what about the story made you want to be a part of it? JESSICA BIEL Craig Gillespie, our director of the pilot, and Olivia [Milch] and Regina [Corrado], our amazing showrunners and writers were honored to read the material and get to take a look at these amazing women. We were able to read the book kind of all at the same time. My first question [was] who's going to play Nicky? And hearing that it was possibly Elizabeth [Banks] and all of these elements coming together all sort of at the same time, for me, was just a jumping off point of 'Oh this is something that could be really, really interesting!' And I think also just the nature of [the story being on] human beings [that are] flawed, beautiful, complicated, smart, hiding things, keeping secrets, as we all do, I saw myself in both of these women, and specifically, really saw my way into playing Chloe and thinking about how exciting it would be to to work in the world of someone who keeps everything inside and contains, contains, contains, while her counterpart, everything is external. It's like two opposite forces coming together. So it was a pretty thrilling opportunity. ELIZABETH BANKS I agree with Jessica. All the elements were really exciting to me. And I also felt like the story had a really large canvas to play with. It felt like Greek tragedy to me. The murdered husband, the two wives, the shared son living in his father's shadow, talking to ghosts, the past sort of having an impact on the present, the betrayals and the lies. So I love that we were going to have this big canvas. I love that it was set in New York, which felt like another character, and that we were actually going to be able to shoot it there, which is such a blessing to get to do. Then great partners like Jessica to play with. So I really loved the entire endeavor from jump. I thought it was such an interesting opportunity. I also really appreciated that the central relationship was sisterhood and motherhood. Nicky and Chloe especially are seemingly bonded by secrets but also both struggling with their identities whether it be personally or as sisters. Can you talk about who you wanted Chloe and Nicky to be individually and get across with who they were? BIEL They're two sides of the same coin. They both have their secrets. They both know these truths that they've been telling themselves. I mean, really more Chloe, I guess. Nicky has been on her path and on her process of self discovery and self forgiveness. These characters, they are our friends. They are our sisters. They are ourselves. We contain multitudes of everything. Human beings are capable of everything. So I think Elizabeth and I just really wanted to have these people feel really authentic with all their flaws, with all their beautiful things, with all their messy beauty, whatever it is, we just wanted it to feel real, and we wanted it to feel like you could recognize yourself in these people. BANKS I think also, at the end of the day, this sense of a need for connection between the two of them is very deep, and they built real walls against it. So through this tragedy that happens in their lives, they get the opportunity to break down those walls and reconnect in a deep way. And especially for Nicky, this is the only family that they have there. Their parents are dead. It's Ethan and the two of them. This is it. This is the family unit now. And I, for one, felt like it's going to be really satisfying for the audience to watch them struggle to build this family back up, knowing all the history and the secrets that they hold. We want the audience to root for them, like a love story, to figure out how to be together and be connected as a family again. The show explores Nicky and Chloe's childhood and how the both of them had different experiences especially given their difference in age. What were your thoughts on their backstory and how their childhood shaped how themselves and each other? BANKS I know that Olivia and Regina really appreciated this notion and theme that children can get different versions of their parents, depending on birth order and time. That really struck a chord with me. I'm the oldest of four kids, and my younger brother is 11 years younger than me, so of course, my parents were different people a decade into parenthood than from when they had me. When I read that that made a lot of sense to me. I also think this is about alcoholism and how it affects families and the lessons that are learned and the protection that older siblings have for younger siblings and the protection that gets put in place when the bad things start happening to one sibling. We want to protect the younger one. Nicky got a very different version of her father and her mom than her sister did, and I think that came to bear on their lives in really profound ways and what it means for them is that they don't have a shared reality of their past. They don't have a shared sense of their history. They have two different histories, and revealing to each other. What was really going on is part of the rebuilding process that I'm talking about that's going to connect them as family again. They don't share the same facts, and when you don't, it's very hard to agree on what happened and to not blame and carry shame and guilt about it. There's a push and pull with Nicky and Chloe where they take steps forward together then take steps back because there's this trust between them that was destroyed at a time. And though by the series end they decide to team on a book and tell their story, what did you make of their relationship by the series end? Do you think they can forgive and forget or is there always going to be some distrust there and things to hash out between them? BIEL I don't think that there's any distrust. I think they've been through quite an experience together, and they have been the most vulnerable that they possibly can be. And at this point, it's the first layer of trust [and] the foundation has been poured again. Now they're really starting from a different place. They have a common goal and a common enemy, and they have a common interest in protecting Ethan no matter what. I think they have no reason at this point to not trust each other. I mean, of course, stuff is going to come up. Family shit just comes up. But they have to trust each other. They only have each other now, and if they can't trust that, then what are we even doing here? Because that's the point of what we're trying to say and what we're trying to tell as Elizabeth was saying. It's like they are going to be successful in overcoming this estranged relationship and overcoming this thing that Nicky had to carry for so long that Chloe didn't know about, which caused their two separate experiences. That's over now. Chloe has shattered her glass house, her pristine world. Now they're level playing fields. They're backing back, like arms linked, kind of feeling. BANKS They came to this scenario with their own secrets, and now they have a shared secret, and I think that's really powerful for them as a way to keep fighting for each other and for Ethan. One thing Nicky and Chloe share in common is their love for Ethan. Though we see he has built relationships with both of them, by the series end he's also left to reexamine his childhood and himself and what's true and isn't. I'm curious for your thoughts on where Nicky and Chloe's relationship with Ethan stands. Do you think there's some resentment there with both Nicky and Chloe or what do you make of their relationship now? Not to mention he doesn't even know the truth of what happened to his father. BANKS I think it's tenuous at best. I think that what's interesting is what we're trying to impart the entire time is that carrying secrets is detrimental to your relationships and to your mental health, to your sense of belonging, and yet we are going to keep a big secret from him. I think we both know it's a danger to our future relationship, to the future bonds that we'll have with him. I think we both know that it's a big risk, but it's one we feel like we have to take — for now. (Laughs.) I don't know! I like that we leave it flawed. You plug one hole, [and] you fix one thing and another leak pops up. That's life. That's the fun of the these characters. They are messy. They are flawed. We don't wrap it up with a bow. At the end, we learn that Nicky was in fact the one to kill Adam. What did you both make of that reveal? Then Elizabeth, can you talk about why Nicky kept it hidden even after Ethan was blamed and the drama aftermath? BANKS Obviously we knew the whole time what had happened. And I think what's fun is going back the clues are all there. I mean literally, I think in episode three, I say, 'I'll say I did it. Just put me in jail instead,' and everyone tells me to shut up, and that's stupid (Laughs.) She couldn't be more open. She goes to AA and says, 'It was a bad idea me coming here.' I know that Nicky came with good intentions. When you know better, you have to do better. And Nicky finding out that Adam didn't change, that she can't disclaim herself: he is the villain of the story; she is going to save her sister and Ethan from him. And he [Adam] turns to what he always does with his violence. And so it was in self defense. I think she believes that all the entire time. She shows up thinking that the tracks were hidden. She doesn't realize what Ethan did. There are so many things being revealed to Nicky when she shows up. She had a plan, and it's gone sideways. That being said, this is the first time that Nicky has had real access to her son and to her sister. She went there with the purpose of making sure Adam did not continue to steal her family from her. And she still has that goal. So I think when she's told you can't say anything, you'll go to jail and lose Ethan and Chloe again, her goal is to not let Adam win. The reason I don't say anything is because I know that at the end I always can. I have a card. I can always play it, but let's play this out and hope that Adam doesn't win. Let's get Ethan off. Let's go home together. Let's be a family. He's got to play a longer game of chess than she realized, but that's what's happening. She's taking the long view. She just has to be a strategist so that she can get her family back and not let Adam win. BIEL What the Nicky character does for Chloe when she commits that act of violence is the greatest sister sacrifice and loyalty ever. On some level, I think Chloe can't even believe that someone stood up for her in that way. That this person whose life she ruined, basically, even though she didn't have all the information, but she took this life from this beloved sister, and she did all these things that put her life spinning down one path, and her sister's life spinning down another path — like she did that for me? To just make sure that I didn't have a life that would go on and on and on with violence and pain and suffering in private, because she knows I would never say anything? And Ethan can't live this way. It's a humongous sacrifice and it's the greatest act of love in this dysfunctional, fucked up family. BANKS I'm the big sister protector, and they set it up in the series. You see us in our past, I'm supposed to keep Chloe from drowning. And I take that seriously as an adult. I felt very alone with pain that I had over Adam for so long. So to know that I actually share it with my sister, it's an incredible relief that I am actually not alone, but I'm not going to let her suffer in the way that I did. There was a moment where Nicky says it was better for Chloe to be with Adam because she could handle it better than she could. So it felt like a full circle moment that she'd be the strong one to ultimately put an end to it all. BANKS But Nicky has done a lot of work to get to that place and believe in herself, right? I think that's a survivor. She had to actually survive it to believe she could be a survivor. We see Nicky really committed to her sobriety and attending AA meetings and working the program. What sort of discussions did you have with the showrunners about it and what research of your own did you do to understand that? BANKS I've actually played a recovering alcoholic a couple times so I've spent time with AA and Al-Anon. I have friends and family who have worked those programs, so I was really honored to represent it onscreen that way. It's one of my absolute favorite organizations; I think it's incredible. It gave me a lot as an actress to work with as Nicky because I know how those meetings go and I know what the steps look like, and I know how much work, internally, and honesty someone has to bring to that process to stay sober. So I know that Nicky had done a lot of that work and that she was trying to introduce her truth to her sister in the show, so it helps me to play this role a lot. We also see Detective Guidry (Kim Dickens) be on to Nicky and seemingly know that though they arrested Bill Braddock (Matthew Modine) for the murder of Adam, that's not what happened and he's not the murderer. Do you think Nicky is still at risk of being exposed by Detective Guidry or do you think they'll find a way to keep what happened a secret? BANKS You know, I have no idea if we will ever get the opportunity to explore this further. I love that there's still a sense of danger for this family going forward. Jessica and I talked a lot about why we had to pin it on somebody else. Why did we have to do that? And that was about protecting Ethan. Ethan was accused of this crime and that accusation was going to follow him and we needed to offer up another idea. Because even though he was acquitted, there was always going to be this shadow over him that maybe he did it. I feel like Nicky, at the very least, couldn't live with this idea that Ethan had to go through the rest of his life with people believing he had murdered his father. So finding another avenue for us was a way to fight the system that had been holding us down throughout. We're two villains in this piece. I mean, we're unlikable women. I'm a bad mom who's a drug addict and an alcoholic who loses her son, and Chloe is a cheating, (laughs) ambitious social climber with a target on her back, you know? We live in a system that wants to hate us, that wants to tear us down. And so it brings out all of our fighting instincts, and Bill Braddock is the embodiment of that system that is holding us down, of that oppression. So be able to nail him for it felt really right to me as a sort of a rallying cry for us as two women in the in the series. Given the series is called I think while watching the series the answer to who is actually the better sister can change and be something hard to even answer. But what is your take on that question that lingers with the series with who is the better sister and why? BIEL I'm with you on that one. It is unanswerable. You cannot point to one or the other at the end of the series. I think that's what I love about the title. It is subverting the expectation of that title, because initially on the out front you think, 'Oh, I'm going to be able to pick it out.' And you probably think it's Chloe at first and then you think it's Nicky, and then you think it's Chloe. And then it goes back and forth the whole time. Then it kind of points to other people too. Just because the word sister is there doesn't really necessarily mean you have to be pointing at us. We are all culpable. We're pointing at everybody. So many different people have a hand in this thing. There's just this big, very gray area that question is living within. BANKS The better sister is not a statement, it's the question. I think it invites the audience to play with the series, as Jessica says, and go back and forth like I think one thing, and now I think another. One of my favorite things about the writing is these cliffhangers at the end. You're pointing in one direction, or you're walking down a certain path, and then all of a sudden we're taking massive right turns and U-turns, and I think it's a it's a great way to pose a question to the audience that invites them to investigate alongside us. *** All eight episodes of The Better Sister are now streaming on Prime Video. Read THR's interview with the series' showrunners. Hilary Lewis contributed to this story. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Studio': 30 Famous Faces Who Play (a Version of) Themselves in the Hollywood-Based Series 22 of the Most Shocking Character Deaths in Television History A 'Star Wars' Timeline: All the Movies and TV Shows in the Franchise
