Maya Erskine Shares the Tom Cruise Trick That Helped Her Film ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith’ Action Scenes
variety.comJim Halterman Since Maya Erskine burst onto our televisions in 2019 as a 31-year-old actress playing the socially inept 13-year-old Maya Ishii-Peters on Hulu’s “Pen15” (she also co-created the raucous show), her comedic path seemed a clear one.
But then earlier this year, she switched it up with the very adult role of intrepid spy Jane Smith, whose cover is to be married for better or for worse to fellow spy John Smith (Donald Glover) in Amazon Prime Video’s action-drama “Mr.
and Mrs. Smith.” Some may call the genre swap a 180-turn, but Erskine doesn’t see the leap as gargantuan. “Shows like ‘The Sopranos,’ to me, have some of the funniest shit I’ve ever seen but are also really dark and dramatic,” she says. “To me, that’s life.
I feel like you can’t have one without the other. There has to be a balance.” She also had to strike a balance in playing Jane, who begins with a clean slate since the character must completely walk away from her past life for this job.
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