Canadian artist Jennifer Wigmore is a woman of many talents – actor, painter, writer and coach to name a few things.
For her latest project, Wigmore is playing the role of Chief Anderson in the highly buzzed new Prime Video series ‘Cross'. As part of the show's main cast, Wigmore more than holds her own opposite lead actor Aldis Hodge, who plays the show's titular character.
I spoke with Jennifer recently to talk about her experience making ‘Cross', discuss the other roles she's played across her career, and to find out how she's going to be spending the holidays…
You're starring in ‘Cross', which is one of the most-buzzed about shows of the year. It's a very dark series. How did you get involved?
I auditioned like most actors do and I guess it's something that I brought to the role. I auditioned actually with that first scene that you see me in, in the restaurant with Cross and Sampson. I guess I just must have hit the right tone for Nzingha (Stewart) and Ben Watkins, who's our incredible showrunner. It was pretty quick. from there. I did a second audition and then I was cast. I couldn't believe it, to be honest.
It was an incredible opportunity and I immediately went out and got the books. There's 31 of them; James Patterson is very prolific on this character. I got the first 15 I think and I read about four and I was immediately hooked as a reader, let alone interested in what Ben was going to do with the world. I knew pretty early on that we weren't doing the books and that the [00:01:00] Cross series, quite wisely I think, is taking the world of Alex Cross and creating new stories. It's building on the world that James Patterson built. I think that's a really good idea because we already know the endings to all the books, right? It's another way to explore the world of Alex Cross without knowing what's going to happen.
And your character, Chief Anderson, she is quite a hard taskmaster. What was it like getting into that character?
Ben, one of the things he did to update the world was surround Alex Cross with incredibly strong independent women at every turn. He needed a boss who was going to not only push him but also cause him a lot of grief. Chief Anderson has her own ambitions, as you'll see as you get along in the series. There's complicated reasons why she's the way she is and I think that's why the series is having such an [00:02:00] impact with people, because none of the characters are simple. They're all very complicated human beings and that's what we like. We like complicated people because I think we think of ourselves as being complicated. That allows us to see ourselves on the screen.
You are part of such a strong ensemble of actors like Aldis Hodge and Ryan Eggold. What's it like working with a cast like that?
First of all, they're all incredibly wonderful people, which, I can't say for every job I've ever had. Aldis is a leader on set. He's a very strong, powerful, passionate, intelligent man and he really has a very collaborative spirit. He really is fun to play with, but he's also fun to be with. He's just a really nice guy. Same with our showrunner, Ben. With the two of them being the leaders of our team it filters down from there.
It's a really great experience to be on that set. Ryan also is a lovely guy. When you feel so safe on set and you feel very comfortable around people it allows you to take really big risks, and to have the tension that we can create because we know that it's not like that really, right? That we're pretending. It's quite easy actually.
As I mentioned before this show is very dark and the material is quite challenging. What's been the biggest challenge for you when making the series?
That's a great question. I think the biggest challenge was to not make (Chief Anderson) a super villain, When you get to the end, episodes eight, there's a very important scene for Chief Anderson and you'll see her in a different light. You'll also see her slightly in a different light in episode five. I think that was really important because sometimes characters that are supporting characters don't get a lot to do. They can sometimes not get the kind of depth of story that makes them really complicated and nuanced.
Finding all the ways that Anderson feels about herself is important because it's not that she's just mean; she's ambitious, she really believes in Cross and I think she's also frustrated by him.
When I was doing my research ahead of speaking to you, I happened upon ‘The Fabric of Christmas', which has just aired on Great American Family as ‘A Cozy Christmas Quilt‘. That film couldn't be more different to ‘Cross' and I think holiday movies are unfairly dismissed as easy to make. What was your experience with that film?
Oh, that was just a lovely one. I'd worked with the director before. We had worked on a series that I did years and years ago called ‘Little Men'. Don asked me to come in and play this part. The beautiful, talented, incredibly funny Ferelith Young who plays the lead character, it was just a joy to play with her. I thought it was a really sweet little movie and I agree with you, I think they've definitely upped the game with Christmas movies in terms of their scripts. They're not so formulaic and they are really heartwarming. There's a huge industry in them, certainly here in Canada we shoot a lot of them for Hallmark and for Great American Family.
You kind of have to learn to love them and I've done a few of them. I've done a couple with Danica McKellar, and that's always been a joy to work with Danica. I find them really joyful and it's such an amazing thing to have a career where you can do those (roles) as well as play this battle hardened, glass ceiling breaking character in ‘Cross'. You might know my other show that I've been doing for a number of years called ‘Malory Towers', which is a British television show on BBC iPlayer and CBBC. (I play) Miss Grayling, who is an iconic headmistress in a British boarding school. All summer I was going back and forth shooting as Miss Grayling in England and ‘ Cross' the second season here in Toronto.
Playing those two characters at the same time was really fun but also I kept pinching myself that this was my life and that I was able to play these two characters at once. It's the best part of being an actor I think.
Absolutely, that's what you want as an actor. You want to play that variety to keep things interesting. What's been your favourite role to play in your career so far?
Oh, that's so hard because a piece of me is with all of them. I really like Chief Anderson and I'm really excited about where she's going to go. I hope that everybody will watch and we'll get a season three, and we can find out where this journey goes. I really enjoyed playing Regina Oliver in ‘ Y: The Last Man', which sadly you can't see anymore, but that was a really interesting character. She was a very battle- hardened, right wing Republican and there was a kind of freedom in playing that character that I don't think I'd ever had before. A lot of the characters I play have to be quite formal because they're in positions of authority and Regina was like… just the gloves were off. She didn't care what people thought of her. There's a real freedom for an actor when you have no allegiance. When I played Diane Lewis in ‘Designated Survivor', who was the head of the CIA, there's just levels of formality there that you have to maintain, but Regina was just an apocalypse; she didn't care. There's something really great about playing a character like that and that was such an incredible experience too, with our show runner, Eliza Clark, and just an entire group of women doing that during COVID. Lots of reasons to love that character, for sure.
What's coming up for you after ‘Cross'?
It's pretty quiet right now. It's always a quiet time of year right around American Thanksgiving and into the Christmas season. It tends to slow down quite a little bit here but I have volunteered with my union, which is the, which is ACTRA, which is the performers union for film and television here in Canada, and we're in the middle of negotiating our agreement for the IPA, which is the agreement that the union has with the Canadian producers. I'm sitting on that bargaining team to lend my voice and my experience so that we get a really good new deal for all the performers that ACTRA represents across the country.
I'm also writing. I love writing. I'm a polymath. I tend to always have something on the go, whether it be writing or painting, I'm a painter as well. I've always got a multitude of things (going on), I managed to get a script of mine into a writing intensive called The Writer's Lab, which came out of New York. It's a really incredibly supportive writing group for women over 40 so I'll be doing that in December as well. Even though I'm not going to be acting for a little bit, I'm going to be very busy up until January and then we'll see.
When I was doing my research, I did read that you actually quit acting for a number of years to pursue painting. That must have been a huge decision?
It was, but it also wasn't at the same time. I was 40 and the roles – this was almost 17 years ago – for women were, how do I say this nicely? One-sided and very plain, and not interesting. There were so few of them and there was so many brilliant actresses in my age category that the competition was just unbearable. I was just not booking jobs and that can be very onely for an actor if that's all you've got and you're waiting for somebody to say yes so you can do what you love. Actors, we can't act by ourselves, it doesn't work that way, so I really needed to find another outlet for my artistic spirit, and I'd always been a visual artist ever since I was little. I thought, you know what, I'm just going to take some time and explore some other artistic pursuits and I enrolled in a couple classes. I fell madly in love with it and I just said, ‘that's it, I'm just gonna dive headfirst'. I phoned my agent and quit, and cut all my hair off and just pulled a full Joni Mitchell and became a painter for 10 years. It was amazing. I did my undergrad, I did my master's and I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I'd probably still be doing it unless my friend Salvatore Antonio hadn't said, ‘I have this play, would you think about reading it?' I did that play and it changed my life and I came back to acting and it's all his fault.
I was going to ask what drew you back. Thank goodness you returned to acting because you're now in ‘Cross', which everyone is talking about…
Yeah. It was one of those things; I decided to do the play and then the play was a big hit and I loved it, and it was a really exciting experience. It took me a whole nother year to say maybe I'd like to do that again. I got an agent and I said to her, ‘listen I'm not going to dye my hair, I'm not gonna pretend I'm somebody I'm not. I don't do Botox or any of those things. I'm just going to be me and I don't know if people are going to like that'. And she said, ‘well, let's give it a try'. It's been great. I feel really grateful and very seen, that I've just been myself and that people seem to want to keep working with me. I feel pretty blessed about that.
What will you be doing for Christmas this year?
It's been a very busy year for me in terms of traveling. I've spent a lot of time going back and forth to England and shooting ‘Malory Towers'. I was just in L. A. and then I was just in Montreal. I think the key for me is not going anywhere and putting up the Christmas tree. Last year we were in Victoria with my husband's family so this year it's going to all be about just being in Toronto, having our friends for dinner, and just watching movies and hanging out with my kids. I can't think of a better thing to do for Christmas than that.
‘Cross' is available to watch on Prime Video now. Watch the trailer for the show below:
