Photo: Jojo Whilden/Prime
Spoilers follow for the miniseries The Better Sisterall eight episodes of which debuted on Prime Video on May 29.
Over decades of playing practical, soft-hearted, no-nonsense characters throughout various time periods and apocalyptic situations, Kim Dickens has worked with, as she calls them, “all my Daves.” David Fincher on House of Cards and Gone GirlDave Erickson on Sons of Anarchy and Fear the Walking DeadDavid Simon on vestibule (and almost We Own This City; the timing didn’t work out). One of Dickens’ most enduring relationships is with David Milch, who created Deadwood and cast Dickens as the loyal, resourceful, and kind madam Joanie Stubbs in his mellifluously vulgar series about the infamous frontier town. More than 20 years later Deadwood debuted, Dickens is back working with the Milches: David’s daughters Olivia and Elizabeth, in whose Prime Video miniseries, The Better Sister, Dickens plays a morally compromised detective whose irascibility becomes her undoing.
“Alafair was like, ‘Take your liberties and let them fly with these characters,’” says Dickens of the relationship between novelist Alafair Burke and series co-showrunners Olivia Milch and Regina Corrado (the latter of whom also wrote for Deadwood). One of the biggest changes made to Burke’s 2019 book involves Dickens’ Detective Nancy Guidry. Where the novel’s version of Guidry was “more utilitarian,” Dickens says, the TV version has “got some flair” as she becomes convinced that sisters Chloe (Jessica Biel) and Nicky (Elizabeth Banks) were involved in the murder of Chloe’s husband (and Nicky’s ex), Adam (Corey Stoll). Thanks to a new backstory involving Guidry’s history of violence on the job and a new ending in which the sisters ruin Guidry’s career to protect themselves, Guidry is expanded into a compelling, complicated character amplified by Dickens’s sardonic, committed-to-the-job performance.
The Better Sister ends with Chloe and Nicky getting away with murder and Guidry brought down low, and each woman having to live with the ethical mistakes she made before and after the investigation into Adam’s death. This tight focus on the series’ women echoes its heavily female team of co-showrunners, producers, and writers. “It was great to work with all the women, but we didn’t even really think about it. We were just like, ‘Oh, we’re all really good at our jobs, and we love doing it,’” Dickens laughs. “That said, the industry should be more equitable. Watch our show and you’ll see why.”
How did Detective Nancy Guidry come to you?
I’ve remained friendly with Regina Corrado through the years since we worked on Deadwood. Regina would say, “Olivia and I are writing something with you in mind.” That’s such a compliment. But it’s also something I’ve heard from my writer friends, and usually it goes to someone more famous than me. (Laughs.) Which is something I completely understand. I got the offer, and I was in the middle of a vacation and I started devouring the scripts. I’d come out of Fear the Walking Deadand this was very different. I have played a detective before, with Detective Rhonda Boney in it Gone Girland I played an FBI agent in a David Milch series before I did Deadwood, Big Apple. It was ahead of its time. It was on CBS, it probably should have been on HBO. It had David Strathairn, Michael Madsen, Ed O’Neill, and Titus Welliver. I met David for that job, and I remember calling my agent and saying, “I’ll do whatever he wants, and I’ll be a better actor for it.” That started my relationship with the Milches.
As you said, you’ve played police authority figures before; Detective Boney is an icon, and you played a sheriff in it Briarpatch. What was interesting to you about Guidry?
Detective Rhonda Boney — I would revisit in a minute if there was a sequel to that, with Gillian Flynn and David Fincher. Dave used to say that what’s endearing about Boney is how casual she is. I remember some body work with Boney. She had a little bit of bird in her. Guidry is much more emotional. She has much more swagger. I have played detectives before, and I’ve also played several madams, so make of that what you will. I felt like I could be very loose with Guidry. There was a lot of irreverence in this show. Nicky’s character is completely out of line most of the time, and even some of the things my character said, but I think it’s rooted in the truth and in these flawed humans. Banks and Jessica Biel, these two performances are so gutsy. Those sister scenes are probably my favorite scenes to watch — that primitive love, or that “I’m going to kill you” feeling.
I love Nicky and Nan together because the two of you can read each other’s bullshit.
These characters read people in the same way, and they’re really pissed that the other can see inside them. It makes them want to kill each other. We recognize damage in each other. We had a great deal of fun with that.
You’ve said Nan is “very performative. She loves the stage.” Was there a scene where you played her at her most performative?
She loves the hunt. She hounds the sisters on a daily basis. She really thinks it was Ethan, unfortunately, in her heart. And there’s a certain confidence she inhabits with all those things. The performative part would be when she’s acting out the crime for Chloe and Ethan, trying to get them on their heels. She’s a little flamboyant with it. That scene is different from when she’s looking through the crime scene and talking to her partner. It’s more performative for the wife and the son, to see what she can get out of them.
In the book, Chloe frames Adam’s boss, Bill, to take suspicion off Nicky, and Guidry unknowingly goes along with that. In the series, Guidry realizes that Nicky killed Adam, but Nicky learns of a coverup from Guidry’s past in which she and other cops wrongfully attacked a Black man and paralyzed him. Nicky leaks that information to the media, Guidry is put on leave, and her final scene is at a bar, watching on TV as her partner, Matt Bowen, falls for Chloe’s framing of Bill while Nicky gets away with it. You have this line towards Matt, “Good for you, getting it all wrong — idiot,” which is both sarcastic and resentful. Having read the book first, did that change surprise you?
It definitely surprised me. Nan goes off grid and outside the boundaries of her job and discovers the truth and the murderer, just for her to then have her hands tied and be stripped of her job and to end up at a bar drunk. For me, that’s the greatest ending because it’s also such a beginning. Does she make it home that night? Does she end up in jail herself? I know she needs that job. That became clear to me through the season. She was not going to be able to contend with her past and the responsibilities of her family if she didn’t have this job. I love trying to put all that in that moment. A couple of times I may have dialed up the drunkenness, a couple of times I slammed down the shot glass, another time I asked for another round. There was an idea that you would actually see her wife come in and gently take her out, and I thought that would be a really beautiful moment if this was a story of a small-town detective. But Guidry’s not the main story.
We see Nancy visit the man she injured, Eddie Jackson, in a care facility. The conversation between you two is so layered and ambiguous. You obviously still really dislike each other, but you’re forever tied by him trying to kill you as you were wrongfully pursuing him, and you nearly killed him after your fellow officers caught up. Talk to me about that scene.
When you meet Detective Guidry, you know she’s been through something, and you kind of root for her — then we find out what it is that haunts her. What a subtle emotional boxing match they wrote for us, myself and Oberon KA Adjepong. She’s not a good guy in it, and he’s not a good guy in it. You can’t be liked in everything. You can’t be perfect in everything. Characters certainly aren’t interesting that way. We held up a little mirror to misconduct and systemic corruption. At the same time, she’s trying to make up for it. When they were penciling out these ideas, I believe Regina said, “You know what David Milch would do. David would make her go see him.” That’s how Regina and Olivia came up with that.
We see that counseling scene before Guidry visits Eddie, where she’s evaluated on whether she can continue doing her job. Did it surprise you that she was honest during it?
I liked that scene because she was kind of deflecting in the beginning of it, until he just gets right to it. It’s so barely beneath the surface for her. Todd Susman was another wonderful actor that showed up for one day. I don’t think it would have served us, having that scene, if she didn’t become honest in it. But there was a moment when the therapist said, “Have you gone to see him?” And she says, “No, I think about it.” Originally in the script, she went to see him first, so she did lie. That’s the way I played it, that I was lying. He doesn’t need to know everything.
The Better Sister sometimes felt like watching a Deadwood reunion — Olivia, Regina, Elizabeth, you, Michael Harney, Keone Young. Did you feel that way too?
For sure. Most of us who did that show together feel like, “I really hope we get to get back together.” I can’t even believe it happened. The longevity of our relationships certainly grounded our work in a family place. Olivia, I knew since she was 15, and then when we did the Deadwood movie, she had a career of her own. She showed up on set and helped. She is her father’s child. There’s so much of David in her, so much of his brilliance, how he can pivot in a moment and come up with things that are really funny — and then also, the meter of it all. She’s got that magic and that talent. It felt very natural to be with her. Elizabeth Milch as well, a tremendous writer and person. I was working with people who have a great sense of humor about themselves and are very talented and also love the work.
Speaking of writing, I’m obsessed with the fact that Nan is a kids baseball coach. I love how she describes coaching: “I’m getting them when they’re young, before they become wretched bitches.” What did that line tell us about Nan?
She’s the audience’s surrogate for calling out any of the spoiled wealth. It’s just one of her things. And I think Nan probably grew up playing sports, too, and she has kids, and she probably coaches her kids. It was humanizing storytelling. She cares.
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