Your character has gone through quite a journey from the first season to the third. She was a political operative in Chicago and now runs a casino that launders money. How does she function in this world?

I think she is very smart. She works very quickly – too quickly. She’s extremely reactive and responsive, but also very shrewd. I don’t feel that she’s emotionally mature, which makes her so much fun to play. She’s very instinctive and has a primal sense of survival and she has an ability and courage to go after ruthlessly what she wants. That’s not the kind of person I am. I’m much more timid. So it’s fun to play someone who is so animalistic.

Do you think the skills she had from her political career helped her in her criminal one?

It certainly gave her an ability to talk to people and an ability to manage people and put them together, as well as ability to read a situation and know how to get from A to B, with many obstacles in her way.

When you got the script for the pilot of Ozark, Wendy was more of a ‘typical wife’ character and somewhat underwhelming. You spoke to the writers of the show about rewriting her character. What were your notes?

I was curious about what they were thinking in regards to Wendy and it was indeed rewritten, which was wonderful. Chris Mundy, who is our showrunner and the one responsible for everything, made a big effort and was terrific in writing this amazing character for me, which was not on the page for the pilot. But it turned into something quite wonderful. There was no reason to have me on the show if I was just going to be doing nothing.  So it’s remarkable what they have done for every character on the show. Ruth Langmore and Darleen Snell are amazing characters and so is Janet McTeer’s character Helen. It’s been particularly wonderful to see what they have done for the female characters. It is a fantastic group of people to work for.

Con Jason Bateman en una escena de la temporada 3 of Ozark.

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The female characters are indeed very strong and complex, but none of them are especially likable. Was that part of the attraction?

There is nothing likable about any of them. It is a show of anti-heroes and everyone is terribly flawed. Everyone is in the grip of a life and death situation., everyone is pushed outside of their comfort zone. But none of these people are ethically sound to begin with and it is interesting to see what the reasons why. They were either born with an inherent sense of survival and had to fight, like the Langmores, because of poverty and class prejudice, or like the Byrdes who chose to cut corners to become wealthy and powerful. Then they found themselves in a situation in which they were stuck and had to rely on the worst parts of themselves to survive. It is all across the board.

We went to the set of Ozark in Atlanta and we met you in the office building where Wendy Byrde works. What do her office environment and the way she dresses tell us about her?

I think it tells you that she can think in different ways. She can think in a corporate managerial sense and then she can also go and throw a possum on the top of a roof, which is what I love about her. There is a real split between her different personalities. She can be very professional and very polished and then she can go out and pick a fistfight or throw an animal on a roof. There are many sides to her.