Nicky (Elizabeth Banks): Chloe’s estranged sister struggles to stay clean and make ends meet. Nicky is tested when tragedy forces a sudden and uneasy reunion with Chloe.
Adam Macintosh (Corey Stoll): Chloe’s husband muscled his way from a local boy in Ohio to the white shoe law firms of New York City, but finds it difficult to embrace the high-class life his wife has built around them. A devoted father, he worries about the impact their new wealth has on his son Ethan.
Catherine Lancaster (Lorraine Toussaint): Grand dame of publishing, New York City queen-maker, Chloe’s mentor and boss, Catherine is always thinking about the long-game.
Bill Braddock (Matthew Modine): The powerful founding partner at Adam’s law firm, Bill Braddock is a man of appetites who can be an ally or a threat depending on the day.
Nancy Guidry (Kim Dickens): A detective investigating Adam’s murder, Guidry sees more than anyone else in the room and isn’t afraid to tell you all about it.
Matt Bowen (Bobby Naderi): Nancy Guidry’s younger partner, Bowen approaches things with a kinder style. But that softer approach doesn’t entirely mask his profound ambition.
Michelle Sanders (Gloria Reuben): A respected lawyer who has made a career of standing up when she’s told to sit down, Michelle Sanders faces a new kind of challenge when she crosses paths with the sisters.
Ethan Macintosh (Maxwell Acee Donovan): Ethan, 17, adores his loving mother, Chloe, and has a complicated relationship with his overachieving, overbearing father, Adam. When he’s swept up in a family tragedy, his mother can no longer protect him, and he’s forced to face his fears head on.
Jake Rodriguez (Gabriel Sloyer): Jake is a colleague of Adam’s at a high-level law firm in Manhattan. He and Adam are bonded by their outsider status at the firm, and over time he’s grown close with the whole family.
Have Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks ever worked together?
“We had met sort of socially over the years at the events that people go to, but we had never worked together, and it was really exciting,” Banks says. “Interestingly, I’ve been told that we look like sisters in the past, and we were actually on the same Vanity Fair cover for their Hollywood issue in 2008. I remember thinking, What a compliment to look like Jessica Biel; she’s an incredible-looking human being.”
In fact, Biel says that her resemblance to Banks is “definitely something I’ve heard over the years. It was one of my close friend’s husband, actually, who would always say, ‘You guys look so much alike.’”
Biel says she didn’t realize the similarities for herself until she saw her headshot next to Banks’s in the production office of The Better Sister. “I was looking at the wall like, Holy shit, we look a lot alike. It was weird, I didn’t even really realize it myself.”
Biel still remembers that Vanity Fair cover shoot with Banks, and in the years since, they’ve continued to run into each other now and then. “I [kept hearing] what a cool person she was and how awesome and funny and amazing she is. And then I really got to know all of those things to be very, very true while working with her over the summer.”
Did Jessica Biel cut her hair to play Chloe?
Yes! Remember that Instagram video Biel posted last May when she tugged on her hair to reveal a blunt bob? Biel reveals to Glamour that it was indeed for the show, even though the original plan was to maybe have her wear a super-short wig. Eventually, though, Biel decided to go through with it because “it’s just who Chloe is. Her hair is sort of a manifestation of the need for organization, the need to keep the control of her life, so that sort of public-facing image just seemed like the right way to go.”
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