Krysten Ritter: Finding Strength Through Her Characters
Krysten Ritter has built a career portraying powerful, complex women, and she’s discovered that these roles have provided her with unexpected strength in her personal life. The 43-year-old actress recently reflected on how playing Jessica Jones—a traumatized, reluctant superhero with extraordinary physical strength—created a protective barrier between herself and the character’s heavy emotional burdens. “Playing Jessica Jones, I realized how much strength playing that character gave me,” Ritter shared while promoting her new film, Stone Cold Fox. The character’s superpowers and mental resilience served as a shield, preventing Ritter from getting “too dark or lost” in the traumatic storylines that defined Jones’ world. First portraying the character in Netflix’s Jessica Jones (2015-2019), Ritter is set to reprise the role in Disney+’s Daredevil: Born Again in March 2026, a testament to the character’s enduring impact.
The influence of Jessica Jones extends beyond Ritter’s professional life and into her personal experiences. In moments of vulnerability or challenge, Ritter has found herself instinctively channeling Jones’ formidable presence. “There have been times where I’ve had to find her in my body,” she explained. “She’s come in and saved the day quite a bit.” This intersection between character and actor illustrates how deeply Ritter has internalized Jones’ qualities, creating a reservoir of strength she can access when needed. Jones reminds her “how strong you can be, even if you lose your way for a minute,” providing a mental framework for resilience that transcends the boundaries between fiction and reality. This emotional connection to her characters reveals how the act of portrayal can transform not just an audience’s perception but also the performer’s self-conception.
Ritter’s approach to selecting roles is deliberate and strategic, gravitating toward women who operate in morally ambiguous territories. Her latest character, Goldie in Stone Cold Fox, exemplifies this preference—an unpredictable, abusive drug dealer whose complexity drew Ritter to the role immediately. “I was looking to do something stylized and over the top, because it’s fun. Anything where you have an opportunity to take a big swing, that’s my MO,” she explained. Crime boss roles traditionally reserved for men rarely come to women in Hollywood, which made the opportunity to play Goldie particularly appealing. Ritter’s enthusiasm was evident as she recalled her reaction to the offer: “I haven’t seen a role like that, so I was just like, ‘Are you kidding? Yes, check, check, check.'” This eagerness to embrace challenging, unconventional characters has become a hallmark of her career.
Despite Goldie’s villainous nature, Ritter approached the character with empathy and psychological curiosity. “She’s probably informed by her trauma,” Ritter observed. “She didn’t just become this evil psychopath for no reason. She’s a result of her circumstances, like we all are, but she had an extenuating set of circumstances.” This perspective highlights Ritter’s commitment to finding humanity in even the most disturbing characters, seeing their actions as consequences of their experiences rather than inherent moral failings. The actress expressed fascination with Goldie’s status as a “loner” and how that isolation shaped her decisions, no matter how “totally insane” they might appear. This nuanced approach to character development allows Ritter to create multi-dimensional antagonists who elicit complex responses from audiences—repulsion mixed with understanding, condemnation tempered with compassion.
Beyond the character herself, Ritter was drawn to Stone Cold Fox by the opportunity to work with first-time female director Sophie Tabet. “I love a first-time female director who’s going for it,” Ritter enthused, noting Tabet’s clear influences from filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and the Grindhouse genre. This commitment to supporting women in the industry extends to her co-star Kiernan Shipka, who plays Fox, a young drug addict attempting to escape Goldie’s abusive commune. The 25-year-old Shipka, known for Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, portrays Ritter’s love interest in the film, creating a complex dynamic between predator and prey. Ritter’s admiration for Shipka transcends their on-screen relationship, describing herself as Shipka’s “forever hype woman” and expressing genuine enthusiasm for her co-star’s talent and work ethic.
Stone Cold Fox represents another step in Ritter’s journey of portraying women who exist outside conventional boundaries. From Jessica Jones to Goldie, her characters share a certain fearlessness and disregard for societal expectations, qualities that Ritter herself seems to value and internalize. The neo-noir action thriller, now available on demand, showcases her willingness to embrace the uncomfortable and explore the darker aspects of human nature. Through her deliberate choice of roles, support for other women in the industry, and introspective approach to character development, Ritter continues to carve out a unique space in Hollywood—one where female characters can be as complicated, flawed, and powerful as their male counterparts. As she moves between superhero narratives and gritty crime thrillers, Ritter demonstrates that strength comes in many forms, both on screen and off, and that sometimes the most valuable aspect of playing powerful women is discovering how powerful you already are.
