Few writers rooms on television are female-dominated at this point, and even fewer are made up entirely of women. But that’s the case for “The Endgame” on NBC, and for series star Morena Baccarin, it’s “heaven.”
“The Endgame” centers on two women, FBI agent Val Turner (Ryan Michelle Bathé) and modern-day Carmen Sandiego, Elena Federova (Baccarin), as they go head to head. Elena has put a mastermind criminal plan into motion — though we still don’t know what exactly her endgame is — and Val, who’s got a bit of a history with Federova, is the only one who’s truly able to decipher what’s happening.
For Baccarin, the characters’ relationship works as well as it does because it’s a story about women, written by women.
“I think it was just really important,” Baccarin told TheWrap. “You’ve got these two women leads, you need to be able to write how women think, you know? And it is different than men.”
As a result, Baccarin added that each layer of her character — of which there are definitely many — is fleshed out and handled well, making Elena even more fun to play.
“I feel like the show does a really great job of embracing the maternal side of Elena, the ambitious side, the frayed and vulnerable side when Val is trying to deal with her husband,” she added. “These are real female issues, and it’s wonderful to have writers that understand.”
Of course, knowing that she’d be starring opposite Bathé was a draw for Baccarin from the start. And once the women got together on set, the collaboration came naturally.
“The idea of working with Ryan was very exciting,” she said. “And we have the best time working together. It can be frustrating sometimes, you know, these long days. She’s out in the cold a lot trying to run around after clues I give her. But we really break down the scenes and try to — every time we have a meeting in that room, that it elevates the story, and furthers the plot. Because if it becomes too repetitive, you lose interest. And I feel like she’s really great at pointing out like, ‘Well, we’ve said this already. And now we’re saying something else.’ We really work together to make those scenes work for us.”
You can watch TheWrap’s full interview with Morena Baccarin in the video above.
New episodes of “The Endgame” air on Mondays at 10/9c on NBC. You can stream episodes now online.