Why Emily Browning has more fun playing the bad girl

Forget the stereotypical nice girl role, getting into something darker and far more removed from her real-life persona is much more exhilarating for this rising Australian star.

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Emily Browning loves to play the bad guy.

Forget the stereotypical nice girl role, getting into something darker and far more removed from her real-life persona is much more exhilarating for this rising Australian actor.

“Everyone wants to play the bad guy — it’s so much more fun than playing the good guy,” she tells Insider.

Australian actress Emily Browning says she loves to play the bad guy. Picture: Austin Hargrave/AUGUST/Raven & Snow

Browning stars as Laura Moon in the big-budget Amazon Prime Video fantasy series American Gods. Based on the novel of the same name from Neil Gaiman, it’s a difficult show to describe.

In an early review of season one, the New Yorker’s Matt Zoller Seitz wrote it was “one of the strangest series ever to air on American television.”

Sounds harsh, but it was actually said in admiration rather than as a slight.

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Laura is the wife of Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle), an ex-con who hears of her death in a car accident just days before his release from prison. As Shadow attempts to make his way home for his wife’s funeral, he encounters Wednesday (veteran English actor Ian McShane), a conman who also happens to the god Odin. Shadow is recruited by Wednesday and the pair embark on a cross-country road trip as a fight rages on between the world’s new and old gods. You have to watch it to fully appreciate it.

Despite her death before the story even begins, Laura isn’t done and while early visions of her portray an almost angelic presence, it’s far from the real personality we come to know.

Emily Browning with Ian McShane in a scene from American Gods.

“What’s really cool about Laura is the fact she has no social skills, really, no awareness of other people’s feelings and she’s just kind of blunt and rude and arrogant,” she explains.

“I think as an actor and as a woman — and someone who has always felt the need to be a people pleaser to some degree, it’s really freeing, it’s really enjoyable to get into that and get that hidden, horrible part of that out there.”

But Browning nearly let the opportunity pass her by. Not a big fan of fantasy, she wasn’t overly excited about the prospect when she was first approached about a role in the series.

“When I first heard about it I wasn’t given a very detailed explanation, just that it was a fantasy show and that’s not generally my favourite thing to do,” she says. “But then I read the script and I loved everything about it — I’d never really read a character like that before.”

Browning was the lead in Zach Snyder’s Sucker Punch.

It was clear to Browning early that the writers were determined to position Laura’s character outside an all too common Hollywood mould.

“What they were trying to do with her in the show is sort of subvert that stereotype of that ghostly, mysterious, murdered girl that I think has been so prevalent in pop culture,” she says. “When you first see her in Shadow’s fantasy, she is exactly that character, but when you see her episode that all kind of gets thrown out the window and you realise she’s this kind of acidic, really difficult, bratty, opinionated asshole — and that’s really, really fun for me to play.”

Of course when you consider yourself to be a pretty decent human being, it’s no easy task to shed all that you know and morph into a character that is the exact opposite to who you are. Browning had to dig deep and take Laura down with her.

“One of my notes early on that I was getting from the showrunners was ‘be more of an asshole, be meaner, be less likeable, trust us, it’s going to be OK—,” she laughs.

Browning also starred in Sleeping Beauty (2011).

“As an actress it’s the opposite of what you’re told forever (which is usually) ‘the camera has to fall in love with you’ and being freed of that, I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed playing a role more.”

While American Gods isn’t a comedy and Laura isn’t overtly funny, there are some situations that leave no choice but to laugh. It’s something that concerned Browning at the start.

“It’s difficult to be funny in an American accent, I don’t really know how to do it,” she says.

“But it helps that I’m five feet tall and all of my scenes are with a seven-foot leprechaun.”

Melbourne-born Browning was just 10 when she made her first appearance on screen in the Hallmark movie The Echo Of Thunder (1998) with Australian acting legends Judy Davis, Michael Caton and Ernie Dingo.

Stretches on Australian shows such as High Flyers, Something In The Air and Blue Heelers followed, but Browning caught Hollywood’s attention when she was cast as Violet in the big-budget movie adaptation of A Series Of Unfortunate Events (2004), which also starred Jim Carrey, Billy Connolly and Meryl Streep.

The Aussie first came to Hollywood’s attention when she was cast as Violet in A Series of Unfortunate Events in 2004.

A permanent move to LA saw her land leading roles in Zach Snyder’s Sucker Punch (2011), the erotic local drama Sleeping Beauty (2011), and Pompeii, opposite Kit Harington (2014).

She soon became interested in her adopted country’s politics, a hobby that escalated into something more passionate after the most recent presidential election.

It’s not uncommon for Browning to express her distaste for the current administration — and Trump in particular — on her social media channels,

“I care about people not abusing their power and I care about people who are powerless being abused and it is just so visible and so apparent right now,” she says. “I’m not trying to be political in anything that I say or do but I can’t not be and it’s a point in time where you can’t not take a side.”

But she also understands the need to keep that passion in check if she wants to keep telling stories.

“I’m just trying to be honest about that and I can’t help talking about it when I hear things that fill me with so much rage,” she says.

“But I’m also trying to keep my visa and be allowed to stay in the country so I’m maybe not as loud as I’d like to be.”

AMERICAN GODS SEASON 2 AVAILABLE ON

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Originally published as Why Emily Browning has more fun playing the bad girl