“Is Emma Myers an introvert?” This is one of the top queries when I Google the actor ahead of our Glamour interview, and one that Myers, 22, can’t help but roll her eyes at when I attempt to get an answer from her, once and for all.
“I would [consider myself an introvert],” she confesses with a laugh. She’s Zooming into our interview from her apartment in Dublin, where she’s been filming season two of Netflix’s Wednesday. In the show, Myers stars as the excitable (and extroverted) Enid, a rainbow-clad foil to Jenna Ortega’s dark and deadpan Wednesday Addams.
“I find that really funny, because I’ll say one thing about my personality in one interview and people run with it, and then that’s my descriptor forever,” Myers continues. “‘Emma Myers: Introvert.’”
However, like most true introverts, Myers says the label doesn’t really apply when she’s around her closest friends. “I guess I’m one of those people who, when I’m with the right people, I don’t really run out of energy,” she says. “The Wednesday cast—I can be with them all the time. I don’t really need that alone time. But I do like to take a day to myself every once in a while.”
Lately, a day to herself is pretty rare. In addition to filming Wednesday, Myers has been busy promoting A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, the six-part BBC series which premiered on Netflix on August 1. Next spring, she’ll celebrate the release of Minecraft, in which she stars alongside Hollywood heavyweights Jack Black and Jason Momoa. And as her star continues to rise following the success of Wednesday and Family Switch, the body-swapping Christmas movie she starred in alongside Jennifer Garner in 2023, she’s likely to stay booked and busy for the next few years.
What’s still up in the air, is whether or not Myers’s future will include A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder season 2. The show is based on the four-part YA series by Holly Jackson, which includes A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder as well as sequels Good Girl, Bad Blood; As Good as Dead; and Kill Joy.
“If people love the show and want more…I’d love to finish it out,” says Myers when asked about a second season. Since its premiere last week, the show has remained steadily in Netflix’s top 10 TV shows in the US—so there’s hope yet.
“I hate starting something and then not finishing it,” she says. “It feels strange.”
Ahead, Emma Myers shares her experience working on A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (including her thoughts on that shocking twist), her love for her Wednesday co-stars, and her favorite hobbies, which will leave no room for doubt that she really is an introvert. (Sorry, Emma!)
Warning: Spoilers for A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder season one.
Glamour: Let’s talk about A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. Can you tell me about your experience booking the project? Had you read the books beforehand?
Emma Myers: Last April, I got an email asking me to meet with the director and the producers. I read the first three episodes, then I met with them, and really liked them. I bought the book when I was in the conversation of playing Pip. I knew a bunch of people who liked them, and I’d seen them everywhere, but I never picked it up myself until I was potentially going to play the character. But then I bought the rest of them, read all of them, and have read them like five times all the way through. I love them.
Are you a big murder mystery fan?
Yeah, I listen to a lot of true-crime podcasts just because I find it interesting. I love the psychology behind it. When I’m on a plane or when I’m painting or something, I’ll always put one on just because it keeps me from being bored. I do love a good mystery.
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What kind of things do you paint?
I’m okay at landscapes. I do a lot of gouache, which is kind of like a watercolor, but it’s a bit thicker. When my brain’s dead and I don’t want to think about what I’m painting, there are these things called Paint by Numbers, which is essentially a coloring book but with paint, and I find them so relaxing. If I can’t sleep and it’s four in the morning and I just need something for my hands to do, I’ll just go paint, and then I’ll put on a podcast and sit there and listen to it.
Were you surprised when you found out what happened in the end of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, or had you kind of suspected something? (Spoiler warning!)
I suspected Elliot. Becca, for me, came out of nowhere. I read the last few episodes of the scripts, and when it gets to the part where it doesn’t really tell you what’s going on, you just kind of end up at Becca’s house, that was when I was like, what the heck? What’s going on here?
I’m glad that you say that because I thought the same thing. I was like, “Something’s funky with this man.” But Becca was a complete surprise. What made you think that Elliot may have had something to do with the murder?
Because he’s a man and suspicious. He’s always inserting himself when he doesn’t need to be there, which is the number one thing that killers like to do—they like to insert themselves into the investigation. He’s a teacher with a classic good guy exterior, and a little bit psycho underneath. I totally expected him.
Becca came out of nowhere. I just thought, oh, poor Becca, depressed younger sister [of the murder victim].
I feel like Pip and Enid have similar energies in that they’re innocent and don’t really know what they’re capable of until they’re put to the test. Would you say you feel that way too, or that you identify with either of them?
Yeah. I actually have never put that together, but that’s actually very true. Even though they’re completely different people. But I identify more with Pip’s personality and the way she conducts herself.
But that is so true that they both don’t know what they’re capable of until they’re put to the test. I definitely think I fall into Pip’s category more than I do Enid’s, but I love them both so much.
You had a British accent in Good Girl’s. Did you work with a dialect coach? Were there any specific Brits you studied?
I did work with a dialect coach. We had very regular sessions, went through all of my scripts, and everything I needed she was there for. I could call her during the workday and say, “Hey, actually I’m struggling a bit with this sentence.” She was amazing. But also, since I had an all-English cast, they were so helpful. I told them, “It’s not going to hurt my feelings if you correct me on something. Just tell me.” They would tell me if they heard me say something that was off. UK accents are so specific. You can drive an hour and somebody has a completely different accent. I didn’t want to accidentally pick up something that wasn’t regional specific to where we were supposed to be shooting, so I let my dialect coach do the work on that one.
That’s a really good point. There are so many different variants. Is there anything that you particularly struggled with that people were like, that one is not quite right?
If a sentence ended in the word “party,” I couldn’t say it, for some reason. I could say the word party if it was in the middle of a sentence. If it ended with party, I always struggled with it. Also, the word “girlfriend” is tricky for me. But also, my English cast is like, “Oh, it’s actually so hard to say ‘girlfriend’ in an American accent too.” I guess we both have trouble with that.
Those are such funny words to be hung up on.
Such funny words. It’s the fact that when I would say party, it would sound too heightened and too much like a very posh, older woman saying it. Not like some cool teenager. Drove me crazy.
Of your three recent Netflix characters—Enid, Pip, and CC from Family Switch—who do you identify with most style-wise?
That’s a tricky one because some of the clothes that I wore for Pip were mine. There’s a pair of jeans that I wear that are cool patchwork jeans. Those are actually my jeans.
But I’m going to be honest, on an average day when I’m not leaving the house, I probably dress like CC—sweatpants and a sweatshirt.
But I will say that I love the layering Enid does. I wish I could layer like that. I do some layering, but in earth tones, and not with as many funky shapes or whatever. I started wearing leg warmers because I loved the ones I wore in season one so much. I bought so many pairs of leg warmers.
That’s awesome, very ’80s. Are you athletic at all? I remember watching Family Switch and wondering if you’d played soccer.
I was. Well, I didn’t ever play soccer, but I did a little bit for the film. I had a few soccer lessons. I learned how to do a trick—I can’t remember what it’s called, but you essentially spin around the soccer ball and it changes direction. It’s crazy. I used to be a dancer and a figure skater, so I grew up with a little bit of athletics. Not a little bit. I was on a competitive dance team, so a lot. [Laughs.]
That helped me with the stamina. I find it’s easier to pick things up because I have that dance background. But no, I never played soccer before in my entire life. It’s crazy.
You’re working on season two of Wednesday right now. Is there anything that you can share about Enid’s character, or about maybe some things that you’re looking forward to showing everybody?
I can’t really say anything, otherwise I’ll probably be dead tomorrow. But I will say I’m in love with the scripts this season. They’re so fun. I love everybody’s character arcs, especially people coming into their powers and stuff. I love the new cast. Everybody’s amazing. We’ve been having a great time out here, so I’m just excited for everybody to see it.
Do you and your cast-mates hang out in Dublin? Do you have the time?
Yeah, we have time. We go out for dinner, we’ll go to a pub or something. We mostly hang out at each other’s apartments though, just doing random stuff.
Do you have a group that paints with you or is that a solo activity?
That’s a solo thing. Sometimes I need my days to myself, so I take that as a little activity to do for me.
I know that you’re into K-pop as well. Is anybody else on the cast with you on that?
Just me.
Have you tried to get them into it?
No, I don’t like when people force their music taste onto me, so I’m not going to force my music taste onto other people. If I have my speaker on and people are over and a song comes up, so be it. But I’m not one of those people that sends a million songs or, “Hey guys, you should listen to this group.” I let people do their thing.
To get back to Pip, would you want to do a season two? Is that in talks at all right now?
I’d love to do one. If people love the show and want more, I’d love to finish it out. I hate starting something and then not finishing it. It feels strange. But for sure, if people love it and respond well to it, I’d love to do another season.
After solving this murder and finishing school and looking to the future—how do you think Pip is doing? Separate from wherever the second book takes her. How do you think she’s feeling?
Probably overwhelmed. Graduating high school and solving a murder and then going to a really big school afterwards is a lot. Tacking on top of all the stuff she went through last year, she’s probably a bit overwhelmed. Poor girl needs a break.
Just saying that made me realize you probably experienced a little bit of that big moment when Wednesday came out. Do you feel like your life changed a lot after the success of the show?
Kind of. The day after the show came out, I actually started shooting another film, and I was so busy with that that I didn’t really pay attention to how big it had gotten. I gained a lot of followers, I knew that. But I thought, oh, people just mass follow people after a show comes out anyways, it’ll go back down in a week or so and it didn’t. That was really crazy.
It wasn’t until I went home for Christmas that my mom was like, “You realize how big this show is, right?” I was like, “Yeah. People like it.” She’s like, “No, it’s like…it’s huge.” It did change after I started noticing it, after I started getting stopped all the time when I was in LA. That’s when I was like, this is really weird. What’s going on? Why are all of you watching my show?
You’re like, “That’s just for me!”
Yeah, it was so weird. We were talking about this with the cast—it was our thing for so long. Only we had experienced it. Now everybody else knows about it. It’s crazy because it felt like just such a small thing, and now the whole world loves it. It was such a weird experience to share that with everybody. But yeah, what a life-changing thing.
Do you or any of your cast members feel a little pressure going into season two?
Not really. I wouldn’t say we feel pressured. We’re confident in the material we have this season. I think people are going to love it just as much, or maybe even more, than season one. I’m pretty excited for people to watch it.
You’ve played, obviously, a lot of teen roles in your career. As you get older, is there anything that you’re looking forward to trying?
Honestly, I really do like playing teen roles. But I do play an older role in Minecraft. Not “old,” but just older than I normally do. I was just laughing because I still look 14, and I’m acting like an adult. It’d be fun to play a more mature role, to try it out. It depends on the job. It always depends on the job and the role. But yeah, we’ll see where the road takes me.
Any genres you want to dabble in?
I would love to do Sci-fi.
Sci-Fi is an interesting genre because you’re doing a lot of the acting against green screens and while wearing funny suits, and they add a lot in post-production.
It’s very different. It would be sort of like a black box theater, I would imagine, green screen. But I read a lot of Sci-Fi, and I love the concepts, so I feel like getting to act in one would be amazing. Another thing I really want to do would be a motion capture. I’d love to play a character that’s all MoCap, either a video game or a movie like Avatar or something. That’d be so fun.
You really just want to be in a green suit with a big green screen in a studio.
I want to feel so silly that nothing matters anymore. You kind of just feel free.
Are there any Sci-fi series or any books that you read recently that you’re hooked on?
I’m a really slow reader because I like to take in what I’m reading. Also, sometimes I need a minute in between books. But I’ve been reading for the past six months the Red Rising Series by Pierce Brown. There are six books in it, and I’m on the fifth right now. I love these books so much. I kid you not, they’re my favorite Sci-Fi books I’ve ever picked up. They’re so addictive, so I highly recommend those.
You’ve worked with some pretty big actors who’ve been in the game a long time, like Jennifer Garner. Have any of them given you advice about how to approach this time in your career, or about navigating the industry in general?
I’ve been given a lot of good advice from a lot of people. Recently, I worked with Jack Black and Jason Momoa, and they’re so helpful with any questions. The best advice, and it’s not really advice, it’s more just watching how somebody behaves, is Jennifer Garner—the way she treats everybody, even with how big she is and how long she’s been doing this. She’s such a personable human and knows everybody’s names. She’s so kind to everybody and treats everybody with respect, no matter what their job is. I admire her so much, and I think she’s a really good role model, especially for young women.
Is there an example that you can give of something that she did that went above and beyond?
When you work on a big film, there are so many people on the crew. You try to talk to everybody. I always try to learn everybody’s names because I really do like talking with the crew. They’re so funny and have great perspectives on things. But she genuinely knew everybody’s names and everybody’s business. She asks everybody, like, “Oh, how’s this going? What’s going on with this? How’s this person?” She’s so good at remembering things like that. She hosted an amazing lunch at her house one time with us. It was great. She’s a great host and a great person.
I love to hear that. Jack Black and Jason Momoa—they’re also icons in the industry. What was it like working with them?
They are so funny. And it sucks because I try not to break in a scene, and you can’t because you’ve got those two. Both of them are amazing. I had so much fun working with the two of them.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The post Emma Myers on the ‘A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder’ Twist She Saw Coming—and the One She Didn’t appeared first on Glamour.