{"id":866298,"date":"2026-08-24T04:36:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T04:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/866298\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T04:36:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T04:36:17","slug":"brooke-shields-new-tv-show-youre-killing-me-you-earn-all-of-your-flaws-and-your-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/866298\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooke Shields\u2019 new TV show You\u2019re Killing Me: \u201cYou earn all of your flaws and your experience\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Brooke Shields can\u2019t play funny because she is too pretty. So say some male network executives with whom she locked horns over her new murder-mystery, You\u2019re Killing Me. In the series, by Mother of the Bride writer Robin Bernheim, Shields plays crime-romance novelist Allison Chandler, the bane of the local detective (Tom Cavanagh) in a cosy fishing village in Maine, the kind where nothing much happens \u2013 except a worrying number of homicides. Allison is funny, clumsy, sensitive and smart. But, according to the network higher-ups \u2013 despite Suddenly Susan, Lipstick Jungle and a legendary guest spot on Friends \u2013 Brooke Shields couldn\u2019t be all those things at once.<\/p>\n

\"BrookeBrooke Shields plays a romance novelist-turned-sleuth in You\u2019re Killing Me. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs an executive producer I\u2019m privy to the comments from our bosses,\u201d she says on a Zoom call from her home, an hour outside New York City. Her expressive hands embellishing her words, Shields radiates warmth and passion. \u201cA lot of it is still stuck in the old times. It\u2019s like, \u2018oh, no, she can\u2019t be clumsy because she\u2019s pretty\u2019. And the more modern way of looking at this is: she\u2019s all of that. She can be sexy and she can be faulted and that\u2019s fine because she\u2019s earned it. At 61, you earn all of your flaws and your experience. And it makes you so much more interesting. It was important for me to play a character like that to show the multifaceted nature of women.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strong, complex female leads are as old as storytelling itself, she says. Just look at Homer\u2019s Odyssey<\/a>, now a box-office hit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Editor’s pick\"Hugo<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAnne Hathaway\u2019s character [Penelope] and Calypso [Charlize Theron] \u2013 these are unbelievably strong women,\u201d Shields says. \u201cThis is since the dawn of time \u2026 Women have been the forebears of strength before we even know. It\u2019s why we have the children. I think that\u2019s starting to become more part of the zeitgeist and not as threatening.\u201d<\/p>\n

The disconnect between Hollywood\u2019s feminine ideal and the female experience is a topic she explored in her memoir Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Ageing as a Woman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou look at Irene Dunne movies and Lucille Ball, who was a beauty queen,\u201d says Shields. \u201cYou look at true female comedy back in that day. Even the Marilyn Monroes. They were brilliantly funny and used their looks as a vehicle. So that by the time they had more dramatic moments, your heart was breaking because they threw you off balance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BrookeBrooke Shields with Andrea Walker, who plays a cocky true-crime podcaster in You\u2019re Killing Me. <\/p>\n

Much of the comedy in You\u2019re Killing Me stems from the generation gap between Shields\u2019 character and cocky true-crime podcaster Andrea Walker (Amalia Williamson from Canadian romance drama Sullivan\u2019s Crossing), with whom Allison is forced to collaborate to solve the murder of a fellow writer. The Gen X-Gen Z misfires yield hilariously awkward verbal slapstick to match the physical theatre.<\/p>\n

\u201cA woman of this age needs this young person in her life,\u201d Shields says. \u201cShe can teach this young person, and she can learn from her too. And together, they\u2019re stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Nathan<\/a><\/p>\n

She needed to look no further for dramatic motivation than her relationships with her daughters, Rowan and Grier, with her filmmaker husband, Chris Henchy.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of [inspiration] came from my trying to set up my phone with Apple Pay, and my daughters being like, \u2018Oh my god, Mum! Here!\u2019 Or I\u2019ll be saying to them, \u2018Are you on the polly?\u2019 And they\u2019re like, \u2018It\u2019s not polly, it\u2019s molly [the street name for party drug MDMA], and no!\u2019 They make fun of me all the time. And so I went to Robin [Bernheim] and said, \u2018We\u2019ve got to put this stuff in there\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Retaining the dignity of the characters amid the rivalry was \u201ca fine line\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re the one being made fun of, you get more leeway. And it\u2019s never mean. My older daughter [Rowan] has all this TikTok stuff that she does<\/a>, and most of it is her making fun of me. I\u2019ll learn the dance or whatever it is. I don\u2019t understand what they\u2019re saying. But it\u2019s funny, and I don\u2019t take offence.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Rowan was born in 2003, Shields suffered postpartum depression, the subject of her memoir Down Came the Rain, and an infamous clash with Scientologist Tom Cruise, who criticised her use of antidepressants. In June this year, Rowan made her reality-television debut, joining the cast of Bravo network\u2019s Next Gen NYC, which follows young professionals making their way in the Big Apple. Her mother wasn\u2019t happy.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"What<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI was horrified. But she held her own,\u201d Shields says. \u201cI got a message from [the show\u2019s host] Andy Cohen that said she maintained her integrity and she is the grounding force. I said to her, \u2018Don\u2019t be the one throwing up. Hold the hair back of the person throwing up. Do not succumb to being mean. That\u2019s not going to get ratings. I don\u2019t want to hear that from you because that\u2019s not who you are.\u2019 So she stayed pretty steady.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shields barely recognises the industry in which she got her break in 1978 in the film Pretty Baby<\/a>, and then shot to stardom in 1980 with The Blue Lagoon<\/a>, before becoming a Calvin Klein model<\/a> and Time Magazine\u2019s Face of the \u201980s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had to hire people to help me with social media. I hate it,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m not good at it. My younger daughter was modelling for a while, and she had a contract, and she had to do all of her own photography. I was like, \u2018You\u2019re working for Tommy Hilfiger. How are you doing your own photography?\u2019 She\u2019s like, \u2018That\u2019s the way it is, Mum\u2019. And I mean, the word \u2018influencer\u2019 \u2013 what does it mean? And [fame] is so short-lived but that\u2019s where the money is going. Someone has this many followers or this many TikToks and they pay them numbers that they would never get paid for a hard job. How do you battle that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BrookeBrooke Shields with her daughter Rowan. Their relationship inspired some of the plots in You\u2019re Killing Me. Getty Images<\/p>\n

As president since 2024 of the Actors\u2019 Equity Association, Shields is lobbying the US government for better wages and working conditions for performers, particularly those employed by Disney\u2019s theme parks and the Trey Parker\/Matt Stone-owned restaurant Casa Bonita.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe battles we\u2019re fighting right now are heartbreaking,\u201d she says. \u201cYou\u2019re watching people work so hard and they\u2019re not compensated. They\u2019re not protected. They weren\u2019t part of the union prior and they want to organise now. We\u2019re going up against this massive industry and this conglomeration that doesn\u2019t care about the people that are busting their asses for them.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Hugo<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAt Casa Bonita you\u2019ve got cliff divers and there\u2019s no safety. The idea that \u2018the show must go on\u2019 is not fair. I\u2019ve had so many injuries myself from being on Broadway \u2013 taping up my knees and continuing to go on. Actors are considered disposable, and the amount they work, and the money they generate, it\u2019s amazing. And that\u2019s male and female.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Washington, DC, where \u201ceveryone wants a selfie\u201d, she has heard shockingly dismissive statements about her craft.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a plumber, you don\u2019t have to pay taxes on your plunger, right? Well, under [former US president] Reagan, if actors had to pay for anything to do with their field \u2013 tap shoes, headshots, singing lessons \u2013 they didn\u2019t have to pay taxes on them,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd then, in 2017, that miraculously just went away. We obviously know why, and so that\u2019s another thing that I\u2019m fighting for. I\u2019ve had people in DC say, \u2018Oh, wait, so you want funding so someone can follow a hobby?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BrookeBrooke Shields and Christopher Atkins in The Blue Lagoon, which launched her career. <\/p>\n

Her experience at the age of 18, appearing in Bob Hope\u2019s variety show for US troops in Beirut, was an early lesson in the value of entertainment. \u201cThose 20 minutes of gags, monologues and songs for all these fresh-faced young people who were staying on the USS Guam \u2013 that was all we could give them. And it meant the world to them. We\u2019re talking about entertainment as a form of escape and medicine, in a way. I\u2019m not overstating it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her new show, she says, \u201cis a little escape \u2026 It\u2019s just entertainment. It\u2019s not too heavy.\u201d<\/p>\n

But she hopes You\u2019re Killing Me plays a part in challenging those pervading perceptions about women that she has faced throughout her lifelong career. \u201cAttractive females can also be smart and not afraid to be flawed. I\u2019m OK with not being pristine and perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019re Killing Me is now streaming on Stan (which is owned by Nine, the publisher of this masthead).<\/p>\n

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