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Jessica Biel has been drawn to psychological thrillers as of late.

“I have been [interested] in these types of projects with complicated humans, exploring the question: Why do people do the things that they do?” Biel tells The Hollywood Reporter. “We’re all capable of goodness and evil — it’s all inside of us — so it’s hard to say, ‘Well, I would never do that,’ because maybe I would.”

Noting she often turns that question on herself, asking, ” ‘What if I was in this situation?’ ” Biel adds, “I like exploring [those ideas for myself] in a safe place where nobody actually gets hurt and nobody’s life is actually ruined.”

That desired self-examination is reflected in her most recent TV projects: In 2022, she starred in Candy as the real-life Candy Montgomery, who was accused of killing her best friend with an ax in 1980. This year, she’s back on TV screens in Craig Gillespie’s The Better Sister, an adaptation of the book of the same name that focuses on estranged sisters (played by Biel and Elizabeth Banks) and how their lives intertwine when one of their husbands is murdered.

But there’s more to the Prime Video series than just murder and deceit, says the actress, whose credits also include TheSinner and 7th Heaven. “The show we made is about these two sisters,” Biel adds. “The interesting thing about my character, Chloe, is that she’s really so many things at once, kind of like we all are: her publicly facing persona and who she is privately … and I like that tension inside of someone, where two things are pulling on her at once. That’s intriguing to me.”