Maya Erskine had never done strength training before being offered the role of a lethal international spy on “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.” But for an actor whose gifts include a supreme corporeal awareness — like playing an awkward 13-year-old (when you’re in your 30s) on the acclaimed comedy “PEN15” — her prep starts with the body.
“I approach things physically, externally,” Erskine said recently over Zoom from her home in Los Angeles. “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.”
But that journey from leaving Maya Erskine behind to embody Jane Smith wasn’t quite so simple. On the Maya end, the actor, who is married to Michael Angarano, had just had a baby — “My body was an absolute wreck, and I was shocked by how much everything changed” — while her endpoint was a young woman who had not only never given birth but had to be fit enough for running, jumping, punching, killing and the like. “I was not a gym person, so I had to become that, and I fought against it a lot,” she admits. “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.’”
We know the end of this uphill battle, however: challenge met, character nailed, praise garnered, Emmy nomination for lead actress in a drama series secured. For Erskine, getting into shape — “I loved doing the action stuff, the adrenaline that comes with hitting a mark,” she says — readily gave rise to the interior of Jane, a guarded figure who had to play-act being a wife while she struggled with real feelings for her spy partner, John (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 little moments, but by the explosive season finale, the onscreen relationship — and creative marriage of styles — was popping. “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,” says Erskine, who believes that even with its exaggerated life-or-death elements, “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” is believable and 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 work partner to onscreen husband Glover is that she, like her co-star, had acted in a show (“PEN15”) she had co-created. Though 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, as in one where people understood her new-mom emotions, is one she deserves going forward. Says Erskine, “Having a kid shifted my whole perspective on everything. I hated being away from him” — 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, sure of herself — is having some influence on how Erskine, who grew up with Gena Rowlands as an acting idol, will apply herself in future. Sure, she’s continued strength training while pregnant with the couple’s second child. (“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.”
