Lukita Maxwell spent the past summer revisiting what first made her fall in love with acting: Shakespeare. When the 23-year-old moved from her birthplace of Indonesia to Utah in her teenage years, she discovered his complete works at her local library—becoming enamored with the language and how it comes alive when spoken. Several years later, the actress best known for playing Alice in the hit Apple TV+ dramedy Shrinking spent her time off after season 2 participating in a Shakespeare intensive at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, immersing herself in the Bard so much that she began thinking in iambic pentameter.
“I think that I'm quite an academic, preppy kid at heart,” Maxwell tells Marie Claire. “All I wanted to do when I was a kid was grow up to be Hermione Granger. I think that Shakespeare School was nourishing to the young academic in my soul.”
The Jakarta-born actress brings that thoughtful, studious demeanor to the set of Shrinking, where she holds her own opposite Hollywood all-stars like Jason Segel, Jessica Williams, and Harrison Ford while giving a nuanced performance as a 17-year-old living with grief. Maxwell describes her character Alice as the “emotional anchor” of the series in season 1, as she and her father Jimmy (Segel) work to repair their relationship one year after a fatal car crash took her mother Tia's life. In season 2, Alice and Jimmy face another emotional curveball, when Louis, the driver in the accident, re-enters their lives, in a new role played by series co-creator Brett Goldstein.
As Alice, Maxwell brings a compassionate and realistically messy depiction of teenage mental health to the screen while she struggles to deal with Louis’s reemergence culminates in a cathartic confrontation in episode 6. You could say that Maxwell’s career so far has been defined by these complex Gen Z roles; she began her career by starring on the short-lived Max teen drama Genera+ion, which found a passionate fanbase who loved its ensemble of queer characters. “I think there's a great responsibility in every role I play to be truthful and find the honesty in scenes,” Maxwell says. “At the end of the day, filmmaking and storytelling in general is about connection, and it's for us to have something to relate to… Ultimately, I think that honesty is the conduit of connection.”
Below, Maxwell chats with Marie Claire about performing fight choreography with her on-screen bestie, performing one of the most emotional scenes of the season with Goldstein, and her hopes for her character in Shrinking season 3.
Marie Claire: Alice has more comedic moments in season 2. Were you excited to play more with comedy this time?
Lukita Maxwell: With Shrinking, I'm privileged with front-row seats to some of the best comedic performances of now. These legends that I get to work with are as brilliant in person as they are on screen. Season 1 Alice definitely serves as an emotional anchor to the ensemble. In season 2, I was given more opportunity to try comedy out a little bit. I'm grateful for that because I needed [time] to let the tone of the show seep into my bones. Going into season 2, we all as a cast and crew knew our machine, and it felt like a quicker production because we knew how everybody worked.
MC: You had a great physical comedy moment in the fight with Rachel Stubington’s character Summer in episode 5.
LM: We fucking sent it. That was so fun. Rachel Stubington is one of the funniest people that I have ever met. She is so intelligent, and doing scenes with her pushes me so much. I'm obviously the youngest of this main ensemble. Each one of these different actors is so specific and so individual. Everybody has their own approach to acting and comedy and I love that. This season, getting to work with Rachel more, as someone who's a peer of mine, was really inspiring. She just is an assassin in every scene, and her improv is so on point. It pushes me. Every day that I was on set with her, I was inspired.
MC: Alice and Jimmy have such open communication as a daughter and father. What has it been like portraying that familial relationship?
LM: Shrinking has been my first role playing the daughter of somebody, and having a close relationship with the person that plays my parent. The nature of Jimmy and Alice's relationship in season 1 is not close. I think that he is trying to be open to her and trying to communicate with her and she is very clearly shutting him down at every opportunity because she is not ready to let him emotionally back into her life after they've been hit with such grief. By the end of season 1, we see her chip away at that wall and they reform that communication and that openness. We get to see that absolutely blossom in season 2 where they have clearer and kinder and more open communication. Alice is very mature for her age and is a very good communicator when she is in the mood to tolerate Jimmy.
MC: Alice’s storyline with Brett Goldstein’s character Louis is really lovely this season. What was it like to have Brett as your scene partner in those very emotional scenes?
LM: I feel deeply grateful to have been able to act across from Brett Goldstein. He is incredibly present and very attentive. Even when he's on set, switching hats between producer and showrunner and writer, he's able to still be so present with me as an actor. I cannot believe that he wrote this scene for us to do, and we just got to play, sit in the emotion of it all, trust each other, give ourselves to the scene. In season 2, because the writers have a deeper sense of the characters and the tone, we're noticing as actors that they're starting to write in our own voices. It allows this freedom for us to play a lot more in season 2 as well.
MC: What was going through your mind while performing the scene in episode 6 where Alice visits Louis, and has this sort of epiphany of forgiveness?
LM: I don't think forgiveness was on the table when she walked into his apartment. When Alice goes to Louis's home, fueled by this morbid curiosity, she doesn't know what she's looking for. What she finds is something completely unexpected. It's a humanity in him. She sees his life, and she's in his apartment with his girlfriend and his Miss Congeniality poster on his wall. She's able to put a face and personify this great evil in her mind, and that humanity brings a lot of emotion to the surface.
Initially, I think she says her piece [about] how much he hurt her, but it doesn't give her the catharsis that we as an audience expect, or that she's expecting as well. I think the catharsis settles when she forgives him. It just happens in the moment. She forgives him after he gives her this gift of a memory of her mother that she has forgotten, and it becomes this beautiful scene that's unexpected.
MC: Shrinking has already been renewed for season 3. What do you hope Alice finds in terms of her happiness as she approaches the end of high school?
LM: I feel like it answers itself. I want her to find happiness. I don't think she is unhappy though. I hope that Alice continues to understand that making mistakes is all a part of the process, that her strength is very powerful and very necessary, and it will be a great tool for her in the future, and she should hold onto that, but not be married to it. I hope that she is able to re-enter a bigger world outside of her family and her chosen family and find a place for herself as whoever she wants to be, and have that person not be dictated by external expectations or perceptions of who she is labeled by the grief that she's been through. And then I hope she goes to college and moves away from everybody and starts her next chapter. I don't know if we're going to see that in season 3. I'm assuming we'll see her last semester of high school or [the] summer before college. We'll see.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
