Netflix, MarvelStill upset that Marvel's Daredevil didn't get any Emmys love for its incredible stunt work? So is the AKA Jessica Jones boss!
Melissa Rosenberg, showrunner of Netflix's upcoming Marvel series AKA Jessica Jones, couldn't believe that Daredevil was snubbed for a stunt Emmy nomination this year, especially after all the buzz surrounding all of the dark, gritty fight scenes.
"No stunt Emmy! I was shocked! How could that happen?" Rosenberg tells E! News exclusively at the 2015 Summer TCA press tour. "How does that not get an Emmy nomination? And oh my god, the hallway scene! That was just beautiful choreography. I was quite stunned that they didn't get nominated."
But don't expect Daredevil-level fight scenes in the next Marvel Netflix TV series, the 13-episode show about a former superhero who turns in her tights and becomes a private detective after a series of tragic events.
"We're not Daredevil. We don't have a costume with a mask," Rosenberg says. "We have a very talented actress, Krysten Ritter, and it's her face all the time. Our reality is extremely grounded. If you read the Alias comic books, it's Jessica Jones on the toilet with her pants around her ankles. Jessica Jones did not train in martial arts, she's a street brawler. If you piss her off, boom, she kicks you."
And that extends to the stunt work as well.
"She doesn't fly but she can jump many stories, and she lands really badly, which is why she doesn't do it too often," Rosenberg says. "And the less you see it, the more believable it is. There will be flights in every episode and they'll get bigger and bigger and bigger but that's not my priority. That's not the nature of the story. This show is more character driven than anything like a scene in that universe."
As for how AKA Jessica Jones will differ from Daredevil, the answer is simple.
"It's one of the first female superheroes, so just by nature of the fact that this person looks and is entirely different than any character that's ever being shown in the Marvel universe," Rosenberg says. "There's a lot of handsome white guys in the Marvel universe."
So why did it take us so long to finally get a female superhero?
"Our world, our country, is still a very misogynistic place," Rosenberg says. "There are still places in the world where they behead women and rape is the standard. America is certainly ahead of that but we still make 78 cents on the dollar for every man. We still represent a very small fraction of the Senate and the House. We still have not had a female president. Rape is still common, one out of four, in our country. So the status of women, I would love to believe we are equal. But we are not. And [not having a female superhero until now] is a reflection of that."
But Rosenberg is proud to write a series that is about more than just a female superhero.
"Character-wise, she is incredibly damaged, flawed, and she makes really bad decisions. She's a character rather than a superhero," Rosenberg says. "She's not out to save the city. She's out to pay her rent and to get her private investigation firm from one client to another. It's very grounded. As with most of us, in her there is this desire to do something that matters, something good. But that's competing with a lot of other really bad behavior. She's complex. Someone like Tony Soprano, or Dexter, they are sociopaths. But she is closer to that than to Captain America."
Rosenberg made sure to make the priority the character itself, and not focus so much on her gender.
"When you have a damaged, interesting character when it's a guy, they're writing for a character. When it's a woman, you're writing gender-first," Rosenberg says. "How I approached this series is I'm not writing for a woman, I'm writing for a character. The fact that was so revolutionary and what's so exciting for me is that a woman happens to be playing it. I'm more proud of this show than anything I've ever done before."
AKA Jessica Jones is set to debut later this year on Netflix.