Put Her in Everything

PEN15 introduced Maya Erskine as a gonzo comedic talent. Mr. Mrs. Smith makes a convincing case for her as a rom-com lead.

- By Jackson McHenry. Photograph by Kelia Anne

BY WHATEVER standard you might succeed at British afternoon tea, Maya Erskine and I seem to be failing. We're in a large whitewalled room at the Langham hotel in London, which claims to be the birthplace of this meal and feels like being inside a wedding cake, with elaborate silver place settings and cream-colored banquettes. The clientele consists of the quietly posh and, like us, the obviously tourist. The service itself is meticulous and overwhelming: You choose your tea and then get finger sandwiches and scones (savory), followed by a dessert course with a list of treats that reads like a menu from a Redwall book-one is a "walnut whip pastry with walnut marshmallow, walnut cream, walnut sablée, and a bit of dark chocolate," our waitress tells us in a whirl of wh sounds-as well as a selection of scones (sweet). It all requires more attentiveness than Erskine currently possesses. She has just flown in from L.A. and hardly slept the night before. She had a giant late breakfast that included blood sausage, which delighted her. "The meat here tastes very meaty," she raves, while apologizing for her current lack of appetite.

Erskine is in town for the U.K. premiere of her new TV series, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, in which she plays one-half of a couple that tends to bumble through its superspy assignments. The series is based on the high-gloss 2005 Doug Liman movie starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but it spikes that concept with awkward, humanscale cringe comedy. Erskine's Jane Smith and her partner, John, played by the show's co-creator Donald Glover, are like C-minus students in an AP class, as director Hiro Murai and Francesca Sloane, the show's other co-creator, described them to Erskine.