Netflix’s gripping, unsettling psychological drama Mindhunter is a show in which two men – FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) – interview dozens of incarcerated serial killers in the 1970s, developing the methodology we now know as criminal profiling. Between the male-dominated Bureau and the (so far) entirely male interview subjects, the show could easily become a testosterone fest.
But it never does, thanks, in part, to its numerous female writers, and in part to Anna Torv’s commanding, nuanced performance as Dr. Wendy Carr. A psychology professor hired to bring scientific legitimacy to Ford and Tench’s nascent work, Wendy’s role is to analyze what serial killers say about themselves and develop insights from there. As was hinted in season one and becomes much clearer in season two, Wendy’s unflappable exterior belies a complex inner life: she is gay, and unable to be publicly out in an era where homosexuality had only recently been removed from the DSM as a mental disorder.
ELLE.com sat down with Torv to discuss Wendy’s experience as a closeted woman in the 1970s, our cultural fascination with Charles Manson, and why it matters that Wendy is not “the heart” of Mindhunter.
Continue reading Anna Torv Is Not Here To Be The Heart of Mindhunter