‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith:’ Star Maya Erskine Evolves Her Craft Through Acting Challenges and Growth Opportunities

Most audiences know Maya Erskine from her acclaimed work on Hulu’s Emmy-nominated PEN15. In that coming-of-age comedy, Erskine starred opposite Anna Konkle and shared two writing Emmy nominations. The series marked a huge breakthrough moment for Erskine who has used that platform to launch into new and exciting territories.

So, how did PEN15 lead to the critically acclaimed spy thriller Mr. and Mrs. Smith? It’s actually an entirely logical next step for an actress who looks to continuously stretch her craft.

“I always am looking for something that’s different from what I just did just to have growth or a different experience. When you’re an actor, you want to play so many different kinds of roles and do different tones and stories,” Erskine explained. “It was also really just the people involved. I was like, ‘Oh, it’s Donald Glover and it’s Hiro Murai and Francesca Sloane!’ I was just so enamored with their work that it felt like an undeniable yes.”

Glover and Erskine play “John and Jane Smith,” two complete strangers who sign up with a mysterious corporation to throw their personal lives away and become spies. Based on the 2005 film of the same name starring Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, the Amazon Prime series takes a deeper, darker approach to the material. It is both fully entertaining with well staged action sequences as well as a thoughtful drama about relationships, marriage, and everything that comes in between.

The audience initially knows nothing about “Jane Smith” save what she shares with John (Glover). By the end of the series, we know more about her, but Erskine held all of that later-revealed information in the back of her head as she played “Jane” in the early episodes.

Holding that information just beneath the surface proved to be one of many acting challenges presented to Erskine over the course of the series.

“They gave me a wealth of information about who ‘Jane’ was when we started, so I had all of that in the back of my head, even when filming the pilot. Knowing what the goalposts would be of this relationship and how much would get revealed within each episode —  they knew all of those key ingredients,” Erskine shared of the filmmaking process. “Having that in the back of my head from the beginning was so informative and helpful but also such a challenge because I couldn’t reveal a lot. It was a constant play of containing all of this information — containing all of these fears, these truths, these insecurities of hers inside this calm, steely exterior.”

Throughout the course of the series, Erskine’s “Jane” finds an unexpected affinity for the work, often proving herself a superior spy to Glover’s “John.” The corporation takes notice too and offers her another, more high profile assignment separate from “John.” Erskine attributes “Jane’s” success to her ability to completely detach from her previous life and succeed in her chosen career without anything holding her back. That’s something “John” is shockingly unable to do as he continues to maintain contact with his mother.

That revelation shocked “Jane” as much as it did the audience. Erskine considers that something of a violation of the Smith’s marital contract. “John” shares information about “Jane” when “Jane” cannot do the same. That is one factor that leads to a near-separation between the two married spies as the series continuously blends aspects from Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage with Allen’s Annie Hall with a Mission: Impossible-style thriller.

It eventually opens us up to one of the best episodes in the series: “Couples Therapy (Naked & Afraid).” In this episode, guest star Sarah Paulson serves as couples therapist to the Smith’s who clearly cannot share the real stress at the root of their deteriorating marriage.

“It’s a great call-back to the opening of [2005’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith], a movie I love. It’s just very fun to play with not being able to share everything when you’re in a therapy session. How do you hide that? How do you also work through your issues? How do you deal with a therapist who seemingly favors one of the other one person over the other in a couple,” Erskine laughed. “I love that ‘Jane’ struggles with that because she feels like the therapist just is out to get her from the beginning and is favoring him.”

Looking back at one of Erskine’s original reasons for joining Mr. and Mrs. Smith, she finds growth stems from being a part of such a massive production, the scope of which she’s never engaged in before. She’s also the focus of nearly every single scene.

But having a fully supportive creative team collaborating with her along the way helped ease any growing pains she might have felt and helped ensure this would be a tremendous growth opportunity for her.

“in a lot of ways, this is definitely the biggest production I’ve been a part of. To be in every scene, to have that sort of responsibility and focus, I think I grew immensely from doing that,” Erskine reflected. “It was also really the process of working with friends. I love working with my friends. It can be difficult at times, but watching how they all collaborate and share ideas was very rewarding. So I learned you just want to work with good people. If you have the privilege and can choose who you work with, it makes all the difference in the world.”

Mr. and Mrs. Smith streams exclusively on Amazon Prime.