The women beside the men of Billions
NEW YORK CITY— Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis are talking up their characters’ gigantic Wall Street battle in Showtime’s new drama Billions, which debuts Sunday on The Movie Network (10 p.m.). Golden Globe and Emmy winner Giamatti sees his U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhoades as a “matador staring down a bull” when he and his office go after rogue financial traders.
“F--- them, I’m ready!” answers fellow Golden Globe and Emmy winner Lewis, who plays billionaire hedge fund king Bobby “Axe” Axelrod.
The series, which can also be seen on CraveTV, revolves around this mano a mano conflict between rampant capitalism and regulation in the world of high finance, in which lines between good and bad are blurred and people do questionable things for the greater good.
Yet in these shark-infested waters swim two fascinating female characters: Rhoades’ wife Wendy, played by Maggie Siff ( Sons of Anarchy, Mad Men), and the other half of the Axelrod dynamic duo, Lara, portrayed by Canadian actress Malin Akerman. Akerman, best known for her romps in Heartbreak Kid, Couples Retreat and Wanderlust, has scored the dramatic role of her career with this “challenging and rewarding” portrayal.
“It’s fantastic to have two strong, very different women like this and it’s a big reason I wanted to do this. These roles aren’t easy to find, so when you get a shot at playing a strong, assertive female character — and let’s not forget mine is also very family-oriented — then this type of role is incredible to play,” Akerman says.
“Lara Axelrod is an anomaly; she came from nowhere, a close but blue-collar family like Axe — and probably why they make a great couple — and she’s really worked her way up to a new level of society. She’s made herself part of this new world, a world of power and big money. Yet, at the same time, she’s kept her value of family, which helps ground both Axe and her.
“But she’s also not afraid to cut you if you cross Axe or her. When a woman connected to Axe’s firm asks, ‘Are you threatening me?’ Lara replies, ‘You’re f---ing right I am!’ She’s wonderful to play because she doesn’t beat around the bush, she’s not subservient and she tells it like it is. Even her husband says, ‘I can’t beat her, I stopped trying.’
“We’re a power couple who value each other’s opinions and I’m not a woman who stands behind but beside her man,” Akerman adds.
Siff says Wendy, who is also a psychiatrist and performance coach at Axelrod’s corporation, similarly doesn’t hide behind men.
“She’s someone who’s very com- fortable in her own sense of authority and in what she does. She has very deep relationships with these two men, who both depend on her for different reasons, and she’s confident enough to accept that,” Siff says.
“In many ways, she’s Axe’s consigliere and she’s also her husband’s consigliere. Instead of shying away from that, probably because she is a shrink, she can step outside and see a bigger picture. She’s also good at speaking her mind to both of them and she readily embraces that function.”
Siff says actresses don’t often come across roles like the ones in Billions, where the female characters are “equally powerful to these titans.”
“Paul Giamatti, he’s a monster of an actor, but also so generous, and someone to learn from,” she adds. “And of course, you’ll see that he and I have a very unique personal relationship that will surprise some viewers. Wendy also appreciates the hardball world they’re all in and she can definitely swim with the sharks. Perhaps not consciously, but she has a lot of power over people who have power, especially the two men in her life, Chuck and Axe.”