Hitting a new high

‘Jessica Jones’ star Krysten Ritter calls superhero part her dream role

LOS ANGELES:

The star of Netflix hit Jessica Jones said on Tuesday she knew she had found her dream job even before she read for the role of the titular superhero sleuth. Krysten Ritter, 34, who has won plaudits for her performance as a private investigator with superpowers in the hard-hitting Marvel television adaptation, hotly tipped to win big at the Emmy Awards in September last year.

“This was always meant to be this dark, gritty, grounded psychological character study,” she told the audience at a screening and panel discussion in Hollywood. “So at that point I’m like ‘Where do I sign? Give it to me.’ And then Jeph (Loeb, the executive producer) locked me in a room and took away my cell phone and I read the script and every page just got better. It was like everything I’d always dreamed to do, from walking around looking cool to doing these cool action sequences to having this really vulnerable, heavy dramatic work.”

Jessica Jones is the second Marvel television conversion after Daredevil, to form part of a “groundbreaking deal” with Netflix, which committed in 2013 to four 13-episode series culminating in a miniseries “programming event.” Ritter’s co-star Mike Colter, 39, who plays Jessica’s love interest, is getting his own spin-off series, Luke Cage, which is due to air later this year.



The pair are due to team up with Charlie Cox, the titular character in Daredevil, and Finn Jones, who will portray Iron Fist, in ensemble show The Defenders, at a date yet-to-be announced. Cast members Rachael Taylor, 31, and Carrie-Anne Moss, best known for her role as Trinity in The Matrix, were also at the screening, with series villain David Tennant beamed into the Paramount Pictures studio from his office in Britain via Skype.

“It’s four in the morning here, I’m wearing my pajamas,” Tennant joked, — gesturing to his off-screen bottom half, when it was put to him that he inspired fear. Tennant, known worldwide as the Tenth Doctor in long-running BBC sci-fi drama Doctor Who, recalled initially seeing the part of bad guy Kilgrave in Jessica Jones as a gamble. “You just read the script and you go ‘Well writing isn’t this good normally -  these scripts are just perfection.’ So I just thought this is a gamble worth taking.”

Netflix, faced with increasingly aggressive competitors such as Amazon and Hulu, has spent recent years prioritizing the production of original series and exclusive distribution deals. The Netflix political drama House of Cards made television history in 2013 when it became the first online-only series ever nominated for a major Emmy award. 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 6^th, 2016.

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