How ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith’ Empowered Maya Erskine

Maya Erskine had never engaged in strength training before being cast as a lethal international spy in “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.” Known for her keen physical awareness in roles like the awkward 13-year-old in “PEN15,” Erskine’s preparation for roles often starts with her body.

“I approach things physically, externally,” Erskine said recently over Zoom from her Los Angeles home. “When I try to do the internal first, I get very stuck, and it’s not in my body. Physicalization helps me figure out who someone is.”

However, transforming from Maya Erskine to Jane Smith was no straightforward journey. On one end, Erskine, who is married to Michael Angarano, had just given birth to their child. “My body was an absolute wreck, and I was shocked by how much everything changed,” she admitted. Her endpoint was a young woman who had not only never given birth but had to be fit enough for running, jumping, and fighting. “I was not a gym person, so I had to become that, and I fought against it a lot,” she confesses. “The trainers and the nutritionist were like, ‘Maya, when we tell other people to eat a carrot, they’re like ‘OK.’ But with you, it’s, ‘Well, can I sauté it in brown butter?’ You make it so difficult.’

The battle was uphill, but Erskine met the challenge. Her character earned her an Emmy nomination for lead actress in a drama series. Getting into shape, she says, “I loved doing the action stuff, the adrenaline that comes with hitting a mark.” It helped her find the interior life of Jane, a guarded figure who had to pretend to be a wife while wrestling with real feelings for her spy partner, John, played by Donald Glover. “Other physical aspects that helped me were how closed off she was in a lot of ways, and how much to let John in, and how much she didn’t. My way for her at first was someone who holds themselves covering their chest, not letting it be exposed.”

She says everyone involved knew the show was a tonal risk, threading high-danger thrills and a love story built on small moments. By the explosive season finale, the onscreen relationship and creative marriage of styles were flourishing. “It was great in the finale, when it felt like the action really fed into the relationship and the action could be infused with a lot of emotion,” Erskine says. Despite its exaggerated life-and-death elements, she believes “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” is optimistic about partnerships. “They’re spies, and they keep things from each other until the very end, but the ultimate message is that life is really hard, there are bad days, but at the end of the day, it’s really nice to have someone to come home to that you trust and love, who’s willing to be there for you.”

One part of her résumé that made Erskine a valuable partner to her onscreen husband, Glover, is that she, like her co-star, had acted in a show (“PEN15”) she had co-created. Although she wasn’t on the “Smith” writing staff, Erskine felt respected as a writer-actor. “They wanted my input,” she says. “I said early on that I couldn’t do two big things at once again, so I didn’t have to go home after a 14-hour shoot and rewrite. But that being said, I could never now just play a role and not have a voice. It’s just more enjoyable when we’re all collaborating.”

She’s also realizing that a happy set, one where people understood her new-mom emotions, is one she deserves going forward. “Having a kid shifted my whole perspective on everything. I hated being away from him,” says Erskine — their first child, Leon, was born in May 2021 — “but they were all incredibly nice people, and it reinforced that I only want to say yes to things that I have to do artistically and where the people are great.”

Even her “Smith” character — tough and sure of herself — is influencing how Erskine, who grew up idolizing Gena Rowlands, will approach future roles. She’s continued strength training while pregnant with their second child, saying, “Taking care of my body has helped me a lot.” But she points to another muscle getting used. “[The role] gave me a confidence I was probably lacking,” she says. “I was playing a woman that didn’t apologize for herself. And that’s hard for me. So it gave me a new superpower. It opened a part of my brain that is helpful in life right now. And that came from Jane.”

Source: Los Angeles Times, Prime Video