Based on the novel by Nora Roberts, new crime thriller Brazen stars Alyssa Milano as Grace, a crime expert and mystery writer. After her sister, a webcam performer, is killed, Grace decides to get involved with the case, much to the chagrin of detective Ed (Sam Page).
Screen Rant spoke with Milano about her work on Brazen, her thoughts on her Guardians of the Galaxy Easter egg, and more.
Screen Rant: Can we please get the Alyssa Milano True Crime Netflix universe? I want to see a movie every year with Grace.
Alyssa Milano: Let's do it! I will totally do it. I am on board. I loved shooting this movie. I loved the experience. I loved the freedom that Netflix allowed us and how it was so important for them to be authentic, and for this to be a good movie. I'm super proud of it.
It was so much fun to watch, and just the mystery unraveling, which I will not give away...
Alyssa Milano: It's so hard to not give it away! I've been doing interviews all day, and I swear, in every single interview I stop myself, thank goodness because otherwise, people wouldn't need to tune into the movie.
We still do. We still do.
Now I have a question I've been wanting to ask you for years. You are a big part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in a way, because Peter Quill's ship is named The Milano after Alyssa Milano, his childhood crush, I assume you had to get permission for that. But I'm just very curious to hear...
Alyssa Milano: I had no idea.
What do you think of that?
Alyssa Milano: It's pretty cool. It is. It is pretty cool. One of the more cool things, I think, that's happened in my life.
So Alyssa Milano exists in the MCU as Alyssa Milano.
Alyssa Milano: [nods] [laughs]
I think that's really cool.
Now another big fan base, of course, is the Nora Roberts romance novel fan base. And Brazen is based on one of her novels. Were you a fan beforehand? And what was your collaboration with Nora like for this movie? Because she seemed very supportive of you as Grace.
Alyssa Milano: So sweet, how supportive she was, and got a little bit of slack for hiring me because of how outspoken I am. But, you know, the movie's called Brazen, so I'm perfect for that. She's incredible. Of course, I was a fan of her work before doing the movie and also, of this book in particular. 'Brazen Virtue' is the name of the book. The movie's called Brazen. And the thing that I asked her was, "Tell me what is not on the page about Grace that I can sink my teeth into and make a character." And she said, "Well, Grace is the type of person who will jump up on a kitchen counter and drink a beer out of the bottle and have a slice of pizza." That's sort of what I built the whole character on, oddly enough. Because everything else was on the page. I knew everything about how she functioned, how she thought creatively, how good she was at her job as a crime writer. But I was missing that nuance of what made her human, and Nora gave me that.
I love that you said that because I was reading the Facebook post that Nora wrote, where she said something like, "I think Alyssa and I will be fine if you guys don't watch."
Alyssa Milano: Yeah, it'll be okay. I hope people watch it though. At the time I was like, "Yeah, you don't have to watch the movie." But now I'm like, "No, this is a really good movie. Please watch the movie."
Definitely. Well, I think that Netflix has done a really good job on the rom-com side of things, and I watched all of those. And then I watched this and I just was like, "I would love to see the true crime universe of Netflix."
Alyssa Milano: For sure, and I think there's a real market for it. Yeah, I'm the audience for it. That's what was so awesome about doing this movie is, it was a movie that I would watch.
Brazen is now streaming on Netflix.