What Emmy Rossum Learned From Law Enforcement That Inspired Her Furious Performance

The Shameless star explains how unresolved cases and the unseen toll of police work helped her understand Alice Black.

Katie Doll is a Tomatometer-approved critic, host, and MTV Movies & TV Writer for CBR. She covers film and television through reviews, features, and interviews, drawing on her love for strong storytelling.

Since joining CBR in 2021, Katie has interviewed talent such as Pedro Pascal, Danai Gurira, and Christina Ricci (among others). Known for her passion for apocalyptic and genre media, Katie is a local Walking Dead expert and also dives deep into Game of Thrones , A Song of Ice and Fire , and The Last of Us .

Shameless star Emmy Rossum returns to television to lead Hulu's new crime drama series, Furious . Rossum portrays Alice Black, an FBI agent investigating the deaths of multiple wealthy men that are all tied to one woman named Catherine (Lola Petticrew).

CBR 's Katie Doll sat down with Rossum and creator Elizabeth Meriwether in an exclusive interview to talk about Furious , and the thorough preparation it took to inhabit the mindset of an FBI agent.

Rossum trained with current and former FBI agents and New York Police Department detectives to better understand her character’s skill set and background.

Emmy Rossum: "Alice is also a former detective who's starting over at the FBI from the ground level. I was able to shadow, train with, and speak to current and former FBI agents, as well as current and former NYPD detectives. We learned interviewing techniques, weapons training, how to speak with people, and the psychological impact that this kind of work has over a long period of time. I was genuinely in awe of what they do."

But what Rossum also found was the disheartening feeling of cases going unresolved. It's a situation that her Furious character can relate to as she struggles to find people who will take her evidence seriously due to a complicated past she has with her ex-boyfriend/former co-worker.

"I was also struck by the frustration they carry from the cases they haven't been able to solve, even when they believe they know exactly who committed the crime. One officer told me about seeing the person they believe committed a crime every single week at their local 7-Eleven. They see this person all the time, but they don't have the one piece of evidence they need to prove it. That tears them apart."

Despite that discouragement, Rossum admired the resilience of the agents and detectives. “Hearing those very real stories about wanting justice but not being able to achieve it, and yet still believing they’ll be able to do it for someone else someday, was fascinating," Rossum said. “I found that incredibly inspiring.”

Meriwether added how important it was for both her and Rossum to speak to women in the field of work Furious is set in: "I think that's such an important place to begin because there are so many law enforcement characters on television ."

She went on to explain that talking to people who do this work helped her write honest characters who felt true to life and different from what audiences had already seen.

One of the biggest things Meriwether wanted to illustrate in Furious was the tedious side of FBI work that many television shows overlook.

Liz Meriwether: "There's the bureaucracy. I think people imagine the FBI as this nonstop, action-packed environment, but in reality, so much of it is elevators, office cubicles, paperwork, and ordinary human beings trying to do their jobs. I was interested in exploring that side of it too, and even finding some comedy in those everyday moments."

Meriwether's signature blend of drama and comedy is on full display in Furious . Much like her recent FX series Dying for Sex , Furious deals with incredibly difficult subjects that might be hard for some viewers. But Meriwether handles them with grace, as does Rossum in a stunning performance.