INTERVIEW: Jessica Henwick Breaks Down Toxic Men, Chris Evans’ Lloyd Hansen, and ‘The Gray Man’
Jessica Henwick is someone we’ve seen kick ass in things like Iron Fist and The Matrix Resurrections, so when I found out she was going to be in the new action film from Marvel’s Russo brothers called The Gray Man, I thought that she was going to be yet another badass woman. What we got was Suzanne, a complicated character with a past that leads to her making questionable choices. And it rules.
Getting to talk with Henwick about Suzanne, I asked her what drew her to the character in the first place and how different she was from the characters we’ve seen from her before. “That was part of the selling point for me. I love how restrained she is. She is just like a simmering, a pot ready to boil over throughout the film,” she said. “And I love that I have played very explosive characters, but to play someone who internalizes everything and processes it behind the scenes is refreshing.”
Suzanne is someone who has put up with the toxic men in her life for quite some time, one being Lloyd Hansen. We get to see Henwick and co-star Chris Evans work off of each other in a way that only two people who’ve known each other for years would.
“That was a lot of fun.We came up with our backstory and actually not all of it is in the film, but Lloyd and Suzanne and Denny have a very messy backstory,” Henwick revealed. “We all went to school together. The two of them were very, very toxic. And Suzanne has some quite personal history with Lloyd. So once we’d established that, it, again, it was about knowing all of that history and then repressing it because the interesting thing about Suzanne is she continues to work with them despite their history. That’s how career focused she is. Her personal feelings, she’s able to put aside for the job.”
Not a character to root for
One of the things about Suzanne that is so cool is that she’s not someone, in the end, you cheer for. She’s all about her career and making sure that she’s okay, and it ends up being her own downfall, as well. “It’s interesting. I was talking with Regé-Jean Page about this yesterday and you are set up to really root for her or feel bad for her because she’s such a victim,” Henwick said. “And then as it progresses, you realize, oh no, she’s a virus as well. She is toxic as many of them. And that’s what I loved about the film. No one is simplistic. It’s not about being good or being evil. Every character is gray in some way.”
Oh, and Suzanne’s quip back at Lloyd about shooting him in the dick? That was all Henwick. “I got a couple of zingers in there. I mean, I improvised that line in one of my earliest scenes where I say I would gladly shoot you in the Dick.”
The Gray Man is in theaters now and will hit Netflix on July 22.
(featured image: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Netflix)
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