There are shows that give us the chills because it draws you in, you're trying to figure out how it all comes together and when they're limited edition series, you hope it comes back again. That's how we feel about USA Network's The Sinner which is back for its second season to show us a crime that you couldn't believe that took place and then retraces its steps to tell you why it went down and how people and experiences are a lot more connected than you can imagine. The cult following of the show comes through based on actors who play characters that don't have clear lines on being either good or bad. Ellen Adair who you have seen on HBO's Veep, NBC's The Slap, Showtime's Homeland and Billions, and currently plays Bess McTeer in The Sinner. She sat down with us to talk about her process as an actor, the scene that had everyone shocked within the first 10 minutes of the first episode (the second scene if you haven't seen it spoilers - you've been warned), character island and the Phillies! ATHLEISURE MAG: So excited to talk to you. I was obsessed with The Slap. When that came out ELLEN ADAIR: Oh wow! You’re the only person in America! AM: Truly loved it. That show was just riveting and then, I’m just going to say it, the scene from The Sinner, was beyond! EA: Oh thanks! AM: Everyone who has watched that has been left with – what? So we’ll delve into that. There are scenes that are in cinema and TV and you think of the horse’s head in The Godfather, but you’re 10 minute situation was like that kind of scene in my opinion. EA: Oh my goodness, thanks – I mean like, move over dead horse's head.
AM: I mean, you were still going. EA: What a great compliment – thanks! AM: Can you tell us about your background and how you got into acting. You’ve been in a lot of things, like Homeland. EA: So I wanted to be an actress since I was like a tiny child which belies some type of personal development I guess. But it was just like children’s theater that I did. I wasn’t a professional child actor and I think that really my love was the theater and I think that that was partly because both of my parents were college professors and are staunchly (less so now, particularly my mom) anti-TV. So I didn’t have a TV growing up. So we would go out to see movies, but I think that my parents had this real thought about it being in the house as a source of a constant distraction. I read a lot and we went to theater and I saw TV at friends’ houses. When I was 10 years old, I said I wanted to be a stage actor and it wasn’t until I got into the professional world that I started working on camera a little bit and I was like, “oh I love this, I love this SO much.” For me, I actually did Shakespeare at an early age. I did my first Shakespeare at the age of 12. My first professional/ semi-professional thing when I was 15. That was also Shakespeare. What I love so much about Shakespeare is that there is so much that is technical about it that it allows my artist brain to just free up because there is this great sense of being like on a train, I don’t have to get on a boat, I just get on the train and take it to the end of the play. I just kind of say, ooo what I ride! I feel kind of similarly about on camera stuff. In that there is so much stuff that is technical about it that part of my brain is able to be free and spontaneous about it. That way, I can be completely real about it.
