AKA Jessica Jones: How Krysten Ritter Went From Quirky Best Friend to Badass Superhero

Meet the woman behind your favorite new superhero obsession.

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Complex Original

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“Incredibly damaged. Dark.”

These are the words Jessica Jones showrunner Melissa Rosenberg uses to describe the eponymous superhero-turned-private eye whom the new Marvel/Netflix show—the first female-led adaptation in the over-arching cinematic universe—revolves around. But they are not the words anyone would use to describe the type of role Krysten Ritter, the woman behind Jessica Jones, usually plays. Not to perpetrate type-casting, but dark, damaged and alcoholic wouldn't be how you'd describe the characters the 33-year-old model-turned-actress has spent the last ten years or so portraying on both the big and small screens. More often than not throughout her decade-plus career, she’s been the bubbly sidekick, the perky best friend, the ditzy classmate. For those familiar with her work from, say, Gilmore Girls or 27 Dresses, it may come as somewhat of a shock to see her heading up the next phase of Marvel’s TV takeover as the lead in the hard-edged noir that is Jessica Jones. But look at Ritter’s career with a closer eye and it’s apparent that it may have been headed in this direction all along.

Raised on a cattle ranch in Pennsylvania for most of her formative years, Ritter’s career began at age 15 when she was literally scouted at a mall by a modeling agency, eventually going on to sign with the reputable Wilhelmina Models. It’s the same IRL personality that she’s become known for on-screen—in her own words, “outgoing and bubbly and funny"— that Ritter attributes to facilitating her jump from modeling to acting to in the first place. Her ability to charm casting directors earned her commercials, which turned into bit parts in films, which turned into her first notable role opposite Julia Roberts in Mona Lisa Smile. Fans of peak, late-aughts feminist TV however, will recognize Ritter from numerous guest spots in which her screen presence shone through on roles that were maybe intended to be less prevalent on the page. She stole the show in the rewarding but admittedly over-populated second season of Veronica Mars as Gia Goodman, the ditzy but strong-willed daughter of Steve Guttenberg’s central suspect, despite appearing in a select handful of scenes. She brought life to the otherwise brain-dead final season of Gilmore Girls as Rory Gilmore’s bubbly new friend at Yale.

Of course, the majority of TV watchers likely know Ritter best from the lone role that bears the most resemblance to Jessica—Jane Margolis, the doomed paramour and bad habit (read: drug use) enabler of Jesse Pinkman on Breaking Bad. As Jane, Ritter debuted other facets of her actual personality—wherein she describes herself as sarcastic and dry—only sans the additional “zest for life,” and with an added edge of inscrutability and thinly veiled darkness. That run of roles culminated in Ritter finally receiving a long overdue lead spot in ABC’s Don’t Trust the Bitch in Apt. 23, wherein she toned down the sunshine, super-dried the wit and added a heavy dollop of cynicism to create Chloe, the titular untrustworthy bitch who was actually more of an opportunist with a reluctantly big heart. When that series was canceled (despite gaining something of a cult fanbase), Ritter’s momentum slowed. TV roles trickled as did the profile of her movies, aside from co-writing and starring in the comedy Life Happens. That is, until an intense round of two month-spanning auditions led her to the final round of casting Jessica Jones. Eventually, she won out over Teresa Palmer.

In some ways then, Jessica Jones is less a career swerve than it is the next natural step in the character evolution Ritter’s filmography has lowkey been on. Elements of the character have been popping up increasingly in her immediately preceding work, traces of which can be found in everything from the party-girl outcast she would’ve played in Gossip Girl’s failed backdoor pilot to the darkly funny suicide outpatient survivor in Starz’s short-lived, Girl, Interrupted-esque series Gravity. And beneath those gritty surface descriptions, the characters maintained the wit and dry humor that Ritter has been known for. And in the same manner that many of her early roles incorporated bits of her personality, maybe playing the edgy Jessica Jones is a continuation of Ritter tapping into herself. In an interview with AMC she admits had she not been scouted as a teen, feelings of boredom and aimlessness could’ve sent her down a darker path: “Growing up in a small town, I was really bored and I didn’t have anything that was just mine—something that I could be proud of for myself. Then, luckily, I was scouted at the mall and I got to travel the world. But before that I was bored. And that’s a dangerous thing for young people. And I could see how easy turning to drugs or anything out of boredom can be.”

More important is that she absolutely kills this new, huge role, both fully committed and believable as the damaged private-eye. In doing so, she’s contributed another death blow that will hopefully help put an end to the rampant typecasting that befalls the industry and limits actors from expressing their full range. After all, the lead on Krysten’s until-now biggest role ever was once a sitcom dad that no one (except Vince Gilligan, apparently) would have ever thought could deliver dramatically-charged lines like “I am the one who knocks.” Five years from now, it might be a shell-shock to reflect on Ritter's comedic days the same way it is to think of Bryan Cranston in Malcolm in the Middle. Whatever she goes on to do, though, she's long overdue for mass recognition the same way Marvel was long overdue for a leading female superhero. It's about damn time.

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