Brooke Shields Discusses the Acorn TV Mystery You’re Killing Me

Brooke Shields began modeling as a baby and acting as a child, famously starring in Louis Malle’s Pretty Baby, followed by The Blue Lagoon and Endless Love. She later starred on Broadway, in films and TV series and has written memoirs. She is currently the lead and an executive producer in the Acorn TV mystery You’re Killing Me, in which she plays a novelist who must team up with a younger podcaster to solve a crime. The new series is co-produced by Topsail Entertainment and Shaftesbury, with Dynamic Television as international distributor.

WS: How did the show You’re Killing Me come about?
SHIELDS: I got to talking with our showrunner, Robin [Bernheim], who also wrote Mother of the Bride, which I was in. I’ve been working with her for different reasons for almost 30 years. I went to her and said, “Let’s try to find something we can do on a serial basis, not just Christmas movies or one movie a year,” which are great.

We started brainstorming and developing the idea of a generational divide [between a woman] my age and a young girl, each bringing different types of expertise and knowledge to the other. That dynamic, mixed with a little heat and a bit of the odd couple, can be mined for a great deal of humor and really touching moments.

I had been developing another version of this in a different world: what happens when you age out of something that you were an expert in? How do you adapt? Do you just give up and say, “This is too young a world for me,” or do you say, “OK, I’ll try to learn from it and modernize without trying to be part of the younger generation”? And there was a maternal aspect too, which I really wanted to tap into.

In You’re Killing Me, there are two women: a young woman who doesn’t know where her mother is, and an older woman who only has a son. It is set in the world of mystery writing. There’s such a hunger for Only Murders in the Building and Murder, She Wrote, all of those feel-good shows without being too sappy or schmaltzy and not too gory or upsetting—all we have to do is put on the news for that. We need entertainment.

The series [starts at] a book convention. You have Allie, who I play, who is [like] a Danielle Steel of the mystery world, prolific and multi-award-winning, wealthy and successful, and all of a sudden, she’s starting to age out. Readers are younger, and they don’t want her. Even though her loyal fans still want her, that number is dwindling. Then there’s a young girl, Andi, an up-and-coming podcaster who covers murders, and she wants to move into the more literary world. We meet, and I’m being told my publishers aren’t going to work with me anymore. She’s told she can’t get an agent because she has no track record. All she did was a podcast. We’re both in this position, and then lo and behold, there’s a murder! We have to join forces to bring our expertise to prove that we can solve it, write a book and be the next era of mystery writing.

WS: What are the dynamics between Allie and Andi, who is played by Amalia Williamson?
SHIELDS: She is a delight. I read with all the actresses and actors. I saw a lot of their tapes and thought there was something very interesting about this young woman. She’s got an old soul, but she’s the right age. She is sweet, funny, smart, quirky and tough. I said, “This is great. Let me read with her.” I read with a couple of other people, and it was so obvious that this young woman was primed and ready to show her talent and versatility. And she was a good, strong foil for me. I have to be opposite someone that I can’t just run circles around. My character has to be brought on her toes a bit. Those moments happen, but you need formidable opponents. And this young woman was old enough and seasoned enough in her talent. She was really good at not letting whatever insecurities she had rise to the surface, which is also part of her character. Underneath our false bravado, both of our characters are very vulnerable: they’re scared, and they’re sweet, and they are searching and they don’t know exactly where they fit in their world at the moment.

I knew Amalia was going to be not just the talent that she is but also a game player. You have to be willing to really work, because the days in Nova Scotia were 17 hours long, much of the time in the cold. You can’t have any prima donnas or weaklings out there. You have to have people who you know want to be there. As an executive producer, I have to say, OK, we need to create a team because it’s going to be difficult at times. We’re doing six hour-long episodes in only a few months.

Amalia was just great, and we can ad-lib; we go off of each other. Luckily, Robin is not too precious about the dialogue. We always make sure to get it, but then we throw in other things once we know we’ve gotten it. At the end of the day, we’re hopefully making people laugh and solving a murder. Hopefully, you spent 45 minutes watching and may have forgotten about many of the things that annoy you in the world.

WS: How do Allie and Andi get along with the detective, Jack Kerrigan, who’s played by Tom Cavanagh?
SHIELDS: He’s just charming, so I’m very thrown off my game by him. My track record [as Allie] with men is not great. I get so caught up in the romance of everything that I just marry the guy, so I’ve had multiple divorces. Here comes another one, and I’m thinking, No, no, no, stay very far away from me! I call one kid “a hot cowboy.” He asks me to dance. And I’m thinking, Oh no, young boy, you are kryptonite; you scramble my brain! So, go away now.

But to be a woman my age and be in a scene where you’re hit on by a 20-something, à la Thelma & Louise; it’s not cougar-y, it’s not weird. It just says women over a certain age don’t lose their appeal or sexuality. AMC Networks and Acorn TV have been unbelievable in letting me be less than likable, less than perfect. Jack, Tom’s character, throws Allie off. She’s got a crush on him, but she doesn’t want to admit it. Allie can make big mistakes because her fear, ego or insecurity gets in the way. I’m 60 now, but for women over 50, over 40 even, Hollywood goes, Oh, God, they’re terrifying to us. Or they have to put us in a certain realm. But AMC has been great at letting us show all sides of what it means to be a woman in this era of her life, without being afraid the audience will reject it. If anything, they embrace it. The physical comedy that they’ve allowed me to do, it’s not slapstick, but it’s there.

WS: Talk about the importance of characters and roles for women over 50, for both actors and the audience.
SHIELDS: I think they’re getting better. There used to be ageism, and you’re done after a certain age. Then Hollywood was leaning into the Helen Mirren aspect of it, or Judi Dench, who are brilliant. They made some of my favorite films. But still, there’s this bracket in the middle that is hard to figure out. We’re not easy to pigeonhole. We’re not young, but we’re not old. It’s similar to the world of marketing and beauty. We were one thing, and then we’re in menopause. OK, but we’re not just in menopause.

We’re starting to see women being depicted on TV and in film in this age group. It’s important to show women in this demographic not as desperate or broken or afraid of the end but as excited about new beginnings and things we don’t really know. When your kids leave home, you don’t know who you are, right? Or if you’re an actress and you’re the ingenue, and all of a sudden you’re not the ingenue anymore, who are you? We’re starting to see stories that at least touch on the complexity of that. I was listening to Kathy Bates, who’s doing the series Matlock. She doesn’t talk like an old lady. She talks as someone who is able to do something that’s enjoyable.

The entertainment industry is finally starting to see the monetary value of [depicting older women]. It’s still very male-dominated, but we’re seeing that change with executives and studio heads. This is a demo that wants to spend money on itself. They can. They are supporting themselves; their kids are grown. There’s this period of time for yourself, and it was important for me to show all of that in the Allie character.

WS: What are the creative challenges and opportunities of episodic television compared to those of film or theater, which you have also done?
SHIELDS: I’ve been lucky enough to go into so many different mediums, usually because one cools to me. So, I go where the opportunity is. Broadway welcomed me when nobody else was. TV did when film wasn’t, and film is starting to come back now.

I’m best in a television show or a Broadway show because it is very difficult. It’s every day, and there’s a continuity to it, which I really appreciate. I am the happiest when I am on a set. It’s in my DNA. It’s who I’ve been since I was a little girl. Being in a theater company has that same familial feeling to me. Movies are grueling in a very, very different way, and then they’re over. With TV, at least if it’s episodic, you do have a chance of returning, and that’s a very good feeling.