'American Gods' Star Emily Browning on What It Takes to Play Laura Moon
The actor dishes on her starring role in the hit new STARZ series.
The actor dishes on her starring role in the hit new STARZ series.
“You know how people have resting bitch face? I have resting worried face.” So says Emily Browning, one of the leads from the new STARZ series American Gods. “I permanently look worried, even when I’m not.” The actress has no cause for concern when it comes to Gods though. The first two episodes have earned rapturous reviews, and the upcoming fourth one is devoted entirely to Browning’s character, Laura Moon. (Major spoilers from here on out if you haven’t read the book.)
“She’s not the bad guy, but she’s certainly not the hero,” Browning says. “She’s like a gray area.” Moon’s origin story alone is worthy of an entire movie: She’s a blackjack dealer sleepwalking through life until she meets and falls in love with Ricky Whittle’s Shadow. They get married and she convinces him to rob the casino she works at, but the plan fails and Shadow gets sent to prison. Years pass, and out of sheer loneliness Laura starts sleeping with his best friend. She dies in a car accident while giving the guy some farewell head, just before Shadow is released from the big house. “I’m not allowed to think about whether a character is likeable or not,” Browning says of portraying Moon. “As long as [the audience] likes her as a character, they don’t have to like her as a person.” She invokes Tony Soprano to prove her point: “He’s the classic antihero, where you see him doing abhorrent things, and you can’t not love him. But I feel like it’s rare that women get to play those kinds of characters.”
Browning—who also had a film, Golden Exits, debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival—initially found it a bit difficult to nail Moon’s personality. “[The director] said, ‘You need to go harder with her being awful. Laura needs to be meaner. Trust us, it’s not coming across as too much.’” She jokingly blames it on her resting worried face: “People kind of empathize with that to some degree.” Fair enough, but her portrayal is so masterful that Moon does come across as, well, if not likeable at first, at least relatable. She makes decisions based on how to best cope with her reality, so when she’s brought back from the dead and transitions as an ass-kicking supernatural being, it makes her reactions to the situation all the more understandable. You can’t help but like Laura Moon, but more importantly, you believe in her.
