Angourie Rice on Her ‘No Way Home’ Easter Egg and “Heartbreaking” ‘Mare of Easttown’ Scene

The actor, known as Spider-Man classmate Betty Brant, stepped into her most adult role yet with the acclaimed HBO series this year.

Angourie Rice began 2021 on HBO’s Mare of Easttown, one of the most critically acclaimed shows of the year, and then she closed out the year with a cameo in the pandemic era’s biggest blockbuster, Spider-Man: No Way Home. As a native Australian, Rice was grateful to be able to shoot Mare and No Way Home during the same trip to the States since each journey home, at the time, required a two-week hotel quarantine. Rice has played Midtown High newscaster Betty Brant throughout the Tom Holland-led Spider-Man trilogy, and as of No Way Home, her character is an intern for J. Jonah Jameson’s The Daily Bugle. She even helped promote the movie in character via the Daily Bugle‘s official TikTok account, which she shot remotely in Australia.

While she only appeared in one sequence of No Way Home, Rice got to carry on the rich tradition of saying, “Go get ’em, tiger,” which is a callback to what Mary Jane “MJ” Watson called Peter Parker in the 1960s Spider-Man comics. It’s also a reference to the concluding line that Rice’s The Beguiled castmate Kirsten Dunst said in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2. Even Rice herself didn’t catch the Easter egg until after the fact.

Rice tells The Hollywood Reporter: “I didn’t pick up on it, but I love that! There are always so many Easter eggs, and sometimes I miss them until I actually see the film in cinemas. And then I’m like, ‘Ohh! I see what they did there.’”

Rice is also looking back at her most grown-up role to date as Mare of Easttown‘s Siobhan Sheehan, the daughter of Kate Winslet’s Mare Sheehan and granddaughter of Jean Smart’s Helen. While working with Winslet and Smart, Rice realized that commitment and kindness are not mutually exclusive.

“Kate and Jean have been working in this industry for a long time and really know what’s up,” Rice shares. “They know how to do their jobs really well while still being kind and open. When you work with people who are professional and committed to their roles — but can also have a really nice conversation with you when they call cut — that’s a really special quality. So I loved watching them work. They’re just incredible.”

In a recent conversation with THR, Angourie Rice (pronounced “Ann-gourie,” like “floury”) also explains why she had to wear a wig during her No Way Home scene. Then she discusses how the pandemic changed the musical side of Siobhan’s role on Mare of Easttown.

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW AT HOLLYWOODREPORTER.COM