Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks made the set of their new show, “The Better Sister,” feel like summer camp, organizing fun group activities and outings for the cast.
Maxwell Donovan, Gloria Reuben and Gabriel Sloyer tell Page Six that Biel and Banks outdid themselves to make sure everyone was having a great time while filming on Long Island last summer.
Biel, 43, who is married to Justin Timberlake, took the cast to one of the singer’s concerts, while Banks, 51, organized a night out dancing at Club Cumming in the East Village.
Sloyer, 36, shares that the concert seats were, not surprisingly, right up the front of the stage, and were so close that he thought the “Sexyback” singer was waving to him.
He jokes he was slightly crestfallen when he realized that Timberlake was waving to Biel.
Sloyer adds that the pair’s “incredible leadership” made the crew “feel right at home from the beginning.”
“It was a pretty dreamy summer,” Donovan shares. “It was like every moment, they were so intentional about setting everything up to be just perfect.”
According to cast members Kim Dickens and Bobby Naderi, Biel even set up a padel tournament for the the group.
“Jess was pretty solid at it,” Dickens shares jokingly, adding, “that’s why she set it up.”
The limited series, which is based on the best-selling book by Alafair Burke, centers around two estranged sisters — Biel and Banks — who must set aside their grievances and mistrust after a prominent Manhattan attorney is murdered.
The lawyer just happened to be an ex of Banks’ character and the husband of Biel’s character.
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Dickens and Naderi, who play detectives investigating the murder, worked together years ago in “Fear the Walking Dead,” but the former didn’t recognize the actor when he got to set.
According to Naderi, 40, his drastically different haircut made him unrecognizable to Dickens, 59.
“Once he jogged my memory, I said, ‘Of course,'” Dickens recalls, noting that “he had a much more military haircut” in the zombie series.
Naderi’s facial hair also got a change-up in “Better Sister” with a serious mustache.
“It had its own separate trailer,” Dickens jokes while Naderi cheekily adds, “It was flown in from Italy.”
“The Better Sister,” which also stars Corey Stoll, Lorraine Toussaint and Matthew Modine, begins streaming on Amazon on May 29.