Annabelle Wallis Embraces Her ‘Mischief’

“Mischief,” Annabelle Wallis says, “is my favorite word.”

The English actress is reveling in the promotion of her new film “Unabomber,” in which she portrays psychoanalyst Christiana Morgan, the codirector of the Harvard Psychological Clinic who conducted experiments on a teenage Ted Kaczynski alongside Dr. Henry Murray. The film, which was released Sept. 25, quickly shot to number one on Netflix, and has been a chance for Wallis to explore a more nuanced role.

“I think what’s been difficult in the career is that I look very much like the girlfriend, which are all those great parts, but I have real mischief and wildness within me through the life I’ve led,” Wallis says. “I love mercurial people. I think to be honest about your flaws and to wear them on your chest and to experiment with all the layers of the psyche and the shadow self and the light, you make for such an honest portrayal of the human existence.”

Wallis, 42, is known for her work in shows like “Peaky Blinders” and “The Tudors,” and starred alongside Tom Cruise in “The Mummy.” Born in the U.K. and raised in Portugal, Wallis has felt “a calling” to be an actor since a young age, and now finds herself getting to explore a variety of characters. In addition to “Unabomber,” she was seen in the action thriller “Mutiny” with Jason Statham over the summer, is shooting a historical drama called “Pedro Pan” and is prepping to work on the comedy “Oh, How Fun!”

“I think to be realistic about, yes, do I want to go and do the auteur and get very into that? Well, yes, of course I do. But I also want to do things that help people escape and that service a whole other need,” Wallis says of doing the action of “Mutiny” back to back with “Unabomber.” “I guess I’m a slight contrarian by nature — maybe more than slight — but I was like, ‘oh, these are not coming to me. This is what I want to do. This is something interesting. Oh, this might be very difficult. OK, great. Let’s try that.’”

And then there’s Christiana, and I was like, ‘ah, finally the academic. I have big words, to be able to use them.’ They were two different worlds. But that’s kind of the dream, to just really get yourself to do such different things.”

In the midst of all her promotion, Wallis has recently welcomed her first child, with partner Sebastian Stan.

“I’m balancing finding time to satisfy work commitments and be with my little baby. So it’s a lovely new trifecta of different levels of brain power and energy,” she says. “I think what’s so wonderful is that people are so supportive of women in my position. I know it’s not always the case, so I feel very fortunate that it’s been great.”

Luckily, “Unabomber” has been easy for her to talk to people about, given the film’s immediate global success.

“I was telling my partner how I was really surprised by how many people, because I went to an international school in Lisbon, and so through that sheer luxury I know a lot of people around the world. And I’m getting texts from people in India, in South America, in parts of Africa that are all watching the same thing,” she says. “And I just think it’s so magical that you all could be connected under one roof, the Netflix platform. I just think that they’re fascinated by the story. They’re fascinated by a story they thought they knew and that there was more to learn.”

The movie, which moves between the 1950s, when Kaczynski was at Harvard, and the 1990s, when the FBI started to investigate his killings, was in development a few years back but wasn’t off the ground just yet when the Luigi Mangione case took the nation by storm. The day he was caught, the project was officially greenlit.

“The currency of the story became undeniable to the platform and the producers,” Wallis says.
“And all of a sudden it was back up again.”

Growing up in a coastal town outside Lisbon, Wallis would occasionally get the opportunity to interact with foreign filmmakers who would come to town for various projects, piquing her interest in the field. She returned to the U.K. to attend drama school and was soon scouted in a music venue, “and it all just fell on my path in a way.”

As she looks to the next stage of her career, she’s hoping the new challenges keep coming.

“I just think that I have many wonderful women that live within me, and they all want to have their chance at the sun,” she says. “As women, we’re so used to fitting in where we need to. It’s like you can become whatever you need to be in said environment. And so I’m just trying out all the different ones.”