Krysten Ritter Fought Hard To Play Marvel’s Jessica Jones

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is hugely wide ranging by this point, with numerous superheroes having been brought to theaters and television over the past ten years. The thing is, though, the majority of these are male. It wasn’t until 2015 that a Marvel superheroine got her own vehicle in the form of Netflix’s Jessica Jones. Given that, you can see why star Krysten Ritter worked so hard to get the part.

The actress, best known for Breaking Bad before she joined the MCU, revealed to the audience of her panel at this weekend’s Comicpalooza just how much she appreciates playing Jessica, labelling the super-powered super-sleuth as one of the most “well-rounded” female characters she’s come across. Because of this, she was “dying” to land the part and admits that she “fought” hard to make sure the role was hers.

“This was a good gig to get. So there was a lot of support, and this was a role that I really, really wanted and went after. Like I said, I’d been acting a long time and roles like this don’t come around every day. It’s so often that a role – and we’re seeing things improve, we’re seeing things more complicated, complex, well-rounded female characters now, I think – but for a while, it was like, ‘This role’s one thing.’ Like, ‘This is the funny one,’ or ‘This is the straight one,’ or ‘This is the voice of reason,’ kind of like you would serve one purpose”

Continuing on, she said:

“I felt like Jessica was this role that does everything and she’s so well rounded and we see all the different sides of her, like us. We all have so many different sides, so I wanted to be able to play that. So this was a role that I read and I was just dying to get and went out and fought for it and we celebrated pretty big. It was a big one, you know? I’m really grateful to have this part that challenges me and allows me to stretch and grow and really sink my teeth in.”

Fast forward three years and Ritter has now starred in two seasons of Jessica Jones and also showed up as one of the quartet of street-level heroes who led The Defenders crossover miniseries. You could argue that Jessica has become the most celebrated of the Netflix characters, too, partly because she’s still a rare female protagonist in the franchise but also because of Ritter’s terrific performance.

The actress isn’t done with the part yet, either. She recently teased what she wants to see in Jessica Jones season 3, which could potentially go before the cameras later this year. According to her, she wants the character to become more of a straight-up hero next time around and “step into her potential.”