The Real Biel

Jessica Biel May Have Started Out as a Pastor’s Daughter in 7 Th Heaven, but She Has Recently Turned Homicidal Housewife in USA’s the Sinner. It’s Just the Role She’s Been

- Kimberly Cutter

What’s it like to murder someone? Jessica Biel has a lot to say on the subject, but at the beginning of our interview, I worry. We’re at The Palm Court of New York’s Plaza hotel for afternoon tea, and Biel—who stars in USA’s riveting eight-episode psychological thriller The Sinner,— arrives looking so poised and ladylike, I can’t imagine her opening up about anything.

She’s dressed in a chic black Self- Portrait tulle-and-crepe jumpsuit, with a black embroidered capelet tied primly at the neck. Her high, sweeping cheekbones and wide green cat eyes are framed by dark bangs and long, pin-straight hair. Her skin is so fine, it looks airbrushed. “Sorry, I’ve been at press events all day,” says Biel, smiling and flushing slightly as she sits down. Her manner is polite, but slightly reserved, with the calm self possession of a longtime yoga devotee. “Normally, I look like you.”

By this, presumably, she means jeans and an old black sweater, because let’s be honest: no one looks like Jessica Biel. She’s such an off-the-charts beauty that she’s had to fight to get Hollywood to take her seriously as an actress. Her role as the squeaky-clean pastor’s daughter on the TV series 7th Heaven made her a household name in the late ’90s, and various “girlfriend roles” in movies like The A-Team and Total Recall (along with a standout performance opposite Edward Norton in the 2006 period piece The Illusionist) established her as an eminently watchable sex symbol in need of a breakthrough. But the breakthrough itself has been elusive. She feels she has yet to prove herself as an actress, and she really, really wants to. Which brings us to The Sinner.