Anna Friel Is Television’s Queen of Morally Complicated Heroes

Anna Friel is making a name as one of television’s most complicated actresses. Even in the middle of an emotional family story about a transitioning child (that would be Hulu’s international premiere of Butterfly), she’s so good at playing… Well, not bad, but a character distinctly distant from the earnest, emotional Mom you’d expect.

Mind you, Butterfly‘s Vicky (Friel) is definitely not like the manipulative and frazzled Marcella (from Marcella), or The Girlfriend Experience‘s politically calculating Erica. The three-episode miniseries follows the story of Maxine (Callum Booth-Ford), an 11-year-old trans girl whose life and family are turned upside down when she starts to transition. Aside from an early-on suicide attempt that was criticized by the National Health Service, the series stands as a frank and emotional take on one young woman discovering her gender, and herself.

Throughout the series Maxine’s mom Vicky is undoubtably the more accepting parent. Whereas her separated husband (Emmett J. Scanlan) is shown physically hitting their young child, Friel’s Vicky listens to Maxine. In the first episode, it’s established that Vicky let her pre-trans daughter play with make up and dolls. But even her kinder approach to this complicated subject is deeply flawed. The strung-out Vicky only lets Maxine explore her feminine side in private, and later blames herself for Maxine’s gender identity, as if this is such a thing that can be “wrong.” Vicky even discourages her daughter from embracing her chosen gender identity and has a complicated relationship with the husband who is physically, emotionally, and verbally cruel to her. Maxine is undoubtably this series’ heroine, but even her biggest supporter is chained to outdated ideas and problematic reactions. She’s not the faultless, loving mother that so often dominate narratives like these.

That characterization likely has a lot to do with the liberties Butterfly takes in transforming its story of trans childhood into a nuanced, complicated, and often intentionally toxic conversation about gender identity. And a lot of that has to do with Friel’s specialty of adding surprising amounts of darkness and depth to all of her roles.

Compare that to ITV’s incredible noir detective series Marcella. The dark crime drama, which recently released its second season, follows a strung out detective whose decision to reopen an unidentified serial killer case triggers a series of psychotic breaks that threaten to tear her apart. In between Friel’s wide-eyed shifting gaze and her mumbling rants, you never know exactly who she is, episode to episode. Is she the law enforcement officer we can all trust, or a villain destined to destroy this world? That’s the tightrope walk Friel has mastered for years. Even when Friel first caught the attention of international audiences for her portrayal of the free spirited Chuck on Pushing Daises, she did so through a performance that was simultaneously engaging and wholly unpredictable.

This sort of unpredictability is what has separated Friel from her colleagues for years. Her love interest character in Pushing Daises wasn’t just a sweet girl next door. She was a treasure trove of information who remained as mysterious as Ned’s powers. Her detective in Marcella isn’t merely an exhausted officer committed to the law. She is secretly abusive and manipulative, to the point where it’s unclear if she can ever be trusted. And in Butterfly when her character’s daughter needs a selfless cheerleader during the hardest transition in her life, Friel can’t lean into that clear-cut and overly simplistic trope. Instead, she quietly attempts to brush aside the needs of Maxine under the guise of protecting her daughter from the outside world. Eventually, she comes to see what her daughter actually needs from her, but it takes a while. Even when she’s supposed to be the hero, Friel can’t help but add a touch of darkness.

Television is awash with shows that take complicated ideas and flatten them to fit easy-to-understand characters. But time and time again, Friel has bucked that trend, embracing her own brand of moral complexity that unfailingly makes these worlds better.

Watch Butterfly on Hulu