The temperature is only about 45 degrees, but the sun is shining, with a few cotton candy clouds scattered across a bluebird sky. Jessica Biel, wearing a golden flowing Roberto Cavalli gown, confidently walks down the bank of a stream that meanders through Lone Mountain Ranch in Big Sky, Montana, about a 15-minute drive from her mountain home. It’s the fifth shot of the day, but Biel’s face (jetlagged after landing in Budapest two nights before) shows no signs of exhaustion. A sunbeam casts a warm glow on her, and a camera shutter snaps.
The final image is reminiscent of Diana, the Roman goddess of nature. Diana is frequently depicted in paintings with a quiver on her back and a deer by her side, indicating her close association with the wild. Diana is also regarded as the epitome of the sacred feminine. It’s a duality that strikes me as very Biel-esque. Biel has previously been ranked as one of the world’s most beautiful and sexiest women. She is undeniably attractive, with eyes that are a stunning shade of green. Still, the 43-year-old appears as at ease in the countryside as she does in the spotlight; an outdoors enthusiast who grew up skiing in Colorado and has built a second home with her husband, Justin Timberlake, and two sons in Yellowstone’s backyard.
People believe they know Jessica Biel after nearly 30 years of knowing her (she rose to fame, as you may recall, as Mary Camden on 7th Heaven, a role she played at the age of 14). They read about her online, rewatch movies like The A-Team and Valentine’s Day, and form assumptions. But, like the complicated women she’s recently portrayed—Cora in The Sinner, the titular character in Hulu’s Candy, and Chloe in Amazon Prime’s upcoming The Better Sister—Biel is more layered than audiences may realize. She’s a talented Emmy-nominated actress, a powerful producer, a multi-business owner, and a dedicated working mother.
Bringing me to Montana doesn’t always mean inviting me to see her true self, though I certainly do. (She arrives at our coffee date the morning of InStyle’s photoshoot dressed in a nondescript black hoodie, gray beanie, no makeup, and a simple gold wedding band, accompanied by her equally casual husband.) It’s about the reality of balancing work and family. She’s looking forward to returning home after months of shooting around the world. She also has a project to promote.
Timberlake takes his own order before finalizing the details of their day and kissing Biel goodbye. She and I take our coffees to-go (mine is a golden latte, hers is an oat milk cappuccino) and ride the gondola halfway up Eglise peak. It’s a warm mid-April day, and despite the fresh snow on the ground, only a few people are on the slopes, including her sons, 10-year-old Silas and 4-year-old Phineas. As we settle into a cozy corner of the lodge where the gondola dropped us off, Biel keeps looking out the large windows to the bunny hill beyond, looking for her children.
“Spending time with the family unit is a huge priority right now, because I’ve been gone, Justin’s been gone,” she says, adding that if she wasn’t working with me this Saturday morning, she’d probably be out skiing with Timberlake, getting a few runs in before picking up the boys from ski school and spending the afternoon on the mountain with them. “These moments at this time feel kind of priceless.” Biel has been in production for almost a year. First, she worked on The Better Sister, a murder-mystery thriller starring Elizabeth Banks that will be released on May 29; then, she worked on Matchbox, Mattel’s follow-up to Barbie, which is expected to be one of next summer’s most anticipated blockbusters, which took her to Morocco, Slovakia, and Hungary.
In The Better Sister, on which Biel also produces, she plays the seemingly perfect Chloe: an enviable magazine editor, married with a teenage son, and living in a sprawling apartment overlooking Central Park with a wardrobe to match. (Biel modeled her character after Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and Anna Wintour.) Banks is her estranged sister Nicky, a disheveled recovering addict who lives in the small town where they grew up. But who is the better sister is a question that is asked and answered repeatedly throughout the eight episodes of the series. When Chloe’s husband is murdered within the first few minutes of episode one (no spoilers; it’s in the logline), the series of twists and turns begins.
“When I first read it, I thought, Oh, this is well thought out, because you keep dropping these small pebbles. Oh my gosh, another bombshell has exploded. Oh, there’s another bombshell, you know? Biel recalls. “It keeps you salivating for more—this kind of soapy, quirky, funny, dark, traumatic story.” The Better Sister team first approached Biel about the role of Nicky. A week or so later, they called again to offer her Chloe. “I realized I was even more well-suited for that character, even though I was really excited about that more wild and ballsy character, as Nicky is.” If you can flow with the universe, it will simply open up in the right way. I recall a time in my career when I auditioned for The Notebook, and it was one of those opportunities that passed me by. What would my career have been like if I had the opportunity to make that film? Clearly, that one was not intended for me.
To become Chloe, she had to undergo a dramatic transformation, severing her long waves and replacing them with a razor-sharp bob cut. “It says a lot about that woman, that super severe haircut, that very specific dress, how she’s moving through that party,” Biel says of Chloe’s first scene appearance. “It was important to have that kind of physical image, because the control element of Chloe is the thing that she holds on to to make sure that she can survive these lies and survive these choices that she’s made in the past that haunt her; one stray hair out of place, and the whole thing could come unraveling.” Bobs are having a cultural moment. I bring up Chris McMillan styling Leslie Bibb’s hair for The White Lotus, a cut he described as “c*nty.” Biel hasn’t seen the viral video, but she smiles at the thought. “I adore Leslie’s hair in that show… I could put [Chloe’s] in that category. Those two characters would be friendly.”
The Better Sister is descended from a long line of serpentine psychological drama miniseries, including The Sinner and Candy, as well as Big Little Lies, The Undoing, and The Night Of. It delivers, with just the right amount of red herrings, unlikely coincidences, and wry one-liners—mostly as Biel and Banks embrace the sibling dynamic. At its core, The Better Sister is a show about two disparate but interconnected women attempting to navigate life’s traumas together.
“Elizabeth is a dynamic, incredible individual. More than anything, we just had a lot of fun sparring with each other every day and being bitchy to each other,” says Biel, who adds that they naturally fell into their roles as older/younger sisters. “I adore her, and I believe she adores me too. We had a fantastic friendship off-camera.”
“Elizabeth is a dynamic, incredible individual. More than anything, we just had a lot of fun sparring with each other every day and being bitchy to each other,” says Biel, who adds that they naturally fell into their roles as older/younger sisters. “I adore her, and I believe she adores me too. We had a fantastic friendship off-camera.”
In early May, I’ll be able to speak with Banks by phone. She couldn’t agree more, mentioning that the actresses bonded over being boy moms and kept the sororal vibes going off-set by playing highly competitive Padel on weekends. “I felt we were very well cast, and I trusted her right away. I believe there was a lot of mutual respect all around. I think she’s a great talent and very committed,” says Banks, who was drawn to the idea of sisters at the center of a murder mystery. “We quickly fell into a mode in which we did not want to disappoint each other. I just knew we were going to bring out the best in each other. And we actually did.”
