Annette Bening has spent four decades building a reputation for inhabiting complicated women, the kind audiences love to hate. From her con artist turn in The Grifters to her ranch owner in the Yellowstone spin-off Dutton Ranch, she knows how to make morally ambiguous characters feel human. Her latest role, mob matriarch Priscilla Matheson in Apple TV+'s Lucky, is no exception.
The new series, which premiered July 15, centers on Anya Taylor-Joy as Lucky, a con woman who wakes up abandoned in a Las Vegas hotel room. Her husband Cary, played by Drew Starkey, has vanished along with millions in stolen mob money. Now Lucky finds herself hunted by both the FBI and the criminals she wronged, including Cary's mother Priscilla.
On paper, Priscilla is the villain. She's the intimidating mother-in-law who despises her daughter-in-law and will stop at nothing to recover the cash and find her son. But Bening approaches the character with nuance that complicates that simple reading.
"I don't find [her] villainous, because from their point of view they're just trying to get through the day," Bening told Refinery29. "I think [Priscilla] really is a sociopath and that's fascinating to play but it's well-written."
Visually, Priscilla breaks the mold of the typical crime boss. Rather than the worn aesthetic associated with male mob characters, she moves through the show in designer pieces: structured trench coats, tailored trousers, statement rings, and thick-framed glasses. She owns a country estate where she rides horses while her crew conducts business in the stables. A pistol lives in her designer handbag.
What truly defines Priscilla, though, is motherhood. Her need to find Cary and protect him from both the FBI and rival mobster Wayne drives her ruthlessness. She wavers between anger at his incompetence and desperate maternal instinct. "I think that she's justified in what she does from her point of view, and it's all about that," Bening explained. "So for me, it was a really intriguing challenge."
The Limits of Power
Yet for all her authority, Priscilla isn't immune to the brutal dynamics that plague the men and women around her. In a pivotal negotiation with Wayne, she attempts to leverage charm against him. What begins as tender affection quickly turns violent. Wayne's hands move to her throat. "There's something pathetic about a woman at your age thinking sex still enters into the equation," he says coldly, before releasing her.
The moment exposes a painful truth: age and gender have stripped Priscilla of leverage, even in the criminal underworld. She's left humiliated, begging him not to harm her son. It's a scene that reframes everything viewers thought they understood about her position and power.
"A lot of women, unfortunately, can relate to that kind of idea," Bening said of the moment. While she stressed that the notion of women losing value with age is "complete nonsense," she noted that "Priscilla believes that. At least in that moment, she feels humiliated by him."
This vulnerability inadvertently places Priscilla and Lucky on similar ground. Both navigate a world controlled by men, both make dangerous choices, both feel the sting of betrayal and limitation. The tension between the two women, and the cat-and-mouse dynamic they share, became what Bening found most rewarding about the role.
"The cat and the mouse of it, that Priscilla, who I play, admires [Lucky] and also needs something from her," Bening said. "It was fun to try and see what might happen between us, and could I crack her? Could I get her to give me what I want? That was really enjoyable."
Lucky is now streaming on Apple TV+.
Author Jessica Williams: "Bening transforms what could have been a stock mobster antagonist into something far more tragic, a woman watching her authority erode even as she wields it."
Comments