Who Is Faye Valentine, Really?

When Daniella Pineda began pursuing the iconic role of Faye Valentine in the live-action adaptation of the cult series Cowboy Bebop, the weight of the project didn’t fully hit her until she filmed her audition. Like that one movie you keep hearing about but never get around to watching, she knew that the anime existed, but hadn’t actually seen it yet.

“It wasn’t until I put my audition on tape at this place and the girl who was the receptionist there… she was typing into her computer and asked, ‘What’s the project for?’ And I said, ‘Cowboy Bebop.’ And she was like, ‘What?! What?!?’ And [she] turned into this weird vicious little zombie animal because she was such a diehard fan. She freaked out.”

That rabid response was a wake-up call. “I got that reaction a couple more times and was like, ‘Wow, this is really, really special. And this is really important to a lot of people,’” Pineda says via Zoom from California, sporting a dark shaggy pixie cut in lieu of Faye’s shiny violet bob. Since landing the role, she’s watched Cowboy Bebop in its entirety at least three times. The actress wasn’t alone, though—she says only two people in the cast were fans of the anime before joining the project.

The passionate reactions are just proof of how influential and groundbreaking Cowboy Bebop was (and still is). The acclaimed anime series directed by Shinichirō Watanabe fuses noir, Western, sci-fi, and jazz with unspeakable finesse. Set in the year 2071, it follows a group of bounty hunters on a spaceship called the Bebop, traveling from planet to planet to catch criminals for cash, all while healing their past wounds. It premiered in Japan in 1998, but most American viewers discovered Cowboy Bebop in 2001, when it started airing on Adult Swim, then a newly-launched offshoot of Cartoon Network. From then on, the cultural reset was steady but long-lasting. “It changed anime,” said Cartoon Network producer Sean Akins, per The Atlantic. “I think people began to think about what shows would be cool.”

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So when Netflix dusted off the Bebop 20 years later for a live-action revamp, the stakes were immensely high. The material must be treated with great care, but it would also be reimagined. Pineda understands the complexities of such an undertaking—“Anyone who’s been a part of a live-action knows it’s really, really challenging,” she says, but perhaps even more so if the source material is so beloved. The result is a series from André Nemec (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) that leans into camp over noir melancholia. Some side characters are given bigger storylines, including women who didn’t speak much in the original. Episode plots are changed or combined to adapt to the 10-episode streaming format. John Cho leads as the suave and lovelorn Spike Spiegel, a former crime syndicate member-turned-bounty hunter; Mustafa Shakir is ship captain and former cop Jet Black, who, in the remake, has a daughter to take care of; and Pineda is Faye Valentine, a fun and foul-mouthed bounty hunter (though she started out as a swindler and bounty head herself in the original) desperate to learn who she really is.

“Luckily for me, this whole role from the jump was like putting on a glove,” Pineda says. Faye is sarcastic, playful, and tough, but also deeply troubled. In both versions of the show, she’s in the midst of an identity crisis after waking up from decades in cryogenic sleep following a tragic spaceship accident with no memory of her past life. She has trust issues stemming from her first days back to consciousness: In the original, she fell for a con man posing as a lawyer named Whitney, who faked his death and imposed his debts on her; in the remake, Whitney is a con woman who pretended to be her mom. And while the animated version depicted her with barely-there outfits catering to male viewers (she’s nearly bursting out of her tiny yellow two-piece), she’s more clothed in this iteration to accommodate for stunts. She’s also exploring her sexuality more—given her amnesia, she’s rediscovering who she’s attracted to.

While new to Bebop, Pineda wasn’t a total stranger to anime. She says she loved Sailor Moon as a child and enjoyed animated films like Spirited Away. But the fans of the genre were new. “I was not aware of what a diehard, hardcore fan community it was,” she says. When the first photos of the remake were released this summer, Pineda was scrutinized by “trolls” (who decried the inaccuracy of her new outfit), but also received an outpouring of love from hopeful fans. “The majority of my experience has been really, really positive and really supportive. I think people get the position that we’re in, but are still really excited to see what we’re going to make.”

Pineda didn’t even want to be an actress at first. She started with ambitions to become a screenwriter or producer (she hopes to make films in the vein of her favorite movie, Ghost, written by Bruce Joel Rubin) but her manager, Kirsten Ames, convinced her to perform, despite her reluctance. Pineda, who had a theater background but didn’t go to acting school, felt “like a novice” when it came to acting, but still, she made the leap. She’s since appeared in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and The CW’s Vampire Diaries and The Originals. She had to put some of her writing projects on hold while sharpening her thespian talents, but now, she’s written a horror script that she hopes to direct, and she’s producing a comedy with boyfriend Andre Hyland. She’s also interested in “finding young and up-and-coming talent and facilitating their careers.”

That should keep Pineda busy as she awaits the fate of Bebop’s still-unconfirmed second season. As for her dream role, her eyes are on the action-comedy space. “I would love to have something that is in the vein of Deadpool, but maybe originated for a woman,” she says. “That would be such a dream.”

Here, Pineda talks to ELLE.com about becoming Faye and what she hopes old and new audiences take away from Netflix’s version of Bebop.

What was the preparation like for this role?

The first thing I did was watch the show, and I think I went through the show in its entirety about three times. At first it was to become familiar with it, to become familiar with the character. What are the things that I liked about the anime? What are the things that I could take from the anime and put in the show? And also, what are things that I could expand upon that maybe the anime didn’t, because it’s a weird balance of taking from, honoring, but also making [it] your own, if it’s a live-action. And anyone who’s been a part of a live-action knows it’s really, really challenging, but it’s fun to decode that puzzle.

We started training. We did bootcamp, which was so intense. I’ve always worked out, I’ve always been fit, I am a naturally strong person, but that said, I like to lounge. I like my chips. I like my programs. This training was one of the toughest things that I’ve ever done. We started training with 87eleven in L.A., which is Keanu Reeves’s John Wick stunt team, and they’re so hardcore. I trained several hours with them a day. And then, eventually, we traveled to New Zealand and went through boot camp with Al Poppleton, who’s our magnificent head of stunts. He’s brilliant. He does all The Rock’s movies and he does all these big, big, big movies. He put us through his torture chamber, which was so insane.

At the end of the day, I just didn’t have energy for anything. It was intense, but it was really, really rewarding. I was also thankful that we got to go through that boot camp because that was also a really wonderful opportunity for all of us to be humbled in front of one another and build relationships. I think that really brought us together.

What was it like working with John Cho and Mustafa Shakir to create that core trio?

It was awesome. Those are relationships that were earned. I mean, you travel halfway across the world and you meet these people who you’ve never met before, and you’re about to do this really intense thing and it can go either sour or really, really well. And thankfully, everyone was so lovely and we all got really close. John Cho is just so lovely and very classy. He’s like, the most GQ, classiest gentleman that there is. And Mustafa just left us in the dust athletically, which was deeply unfair. I think I was the cynic of the group, just pointing out how insane this all was, but we were really good dynamically. And I also think that dynamic, in a lot of ways, translated to the show. So in its entirety, we were all a good fit.

When you were decoding what you liked and what you didn’t like from the original, what did you like about it or about Faye?

There were a couple of things. The thing that stuck out to me the most that I really latched onto was her impulsivity and how humorous and comedic her impatience is. She gets so annoyed so quickly. And part of it is her survival mechanism, which I also love. She’s someone who doesn’t know where she came from. She doesn’t know who she is. She doesn’t know if she likes apples or oranges. She couldn’t tell you, and she’s figuring all of this stuff out for the first time. And I thought that was really interesting. That’s something we stretched out in our live-action that we wanted to flesh out: What would it be like if you really were a person who really didn’t know any of these things about yourself? In the anime, she’s so take-no-shit, but also incredibly feminine. Watching the anime, I just got very excited and juiced up about getting to play her. But at the end of the day, I also have to honor whatever is written in the show and what the writers wrote. So it was trying to figure out how to marry the two.

I think Faye’s story is super interesting, especially considering how sexualized she was and how she was dressed and illustrated. Did you talk to André Nemec about those changes in the live-action and what that meant for the character, and were you involved in suggesting any of that at all?

Yeah. I definitely had a lot of say. What it really came down to was: What was her outfit going to be? And then, once we figured out the costume, we can then figure out how this person lives in reality. But, I was also required to do a lot of stunts and I was required to get in shape. And although that outfit is what it is, for an actor who’s shooting six days a week, 12-, 14-hour days and you’re doing rolls and stunts and kicks, you need an outfit that can hide knee pads and back pads and gels and things like that. I think just from a functionality standpoint, the outfit had to somewhat desexualize… I think our writers and producers were more interested in her essence as a character and who she was and maybe less focused on her sexualization. Although, it’s so funny because I’ve also had interviews where people were like, “So they totally stripped all the sexuality,” and I’m like, “Um, okay. Hey, buddy. Hey, still here.” I had so many male interviewers be like, “Yeah, she’s like, totally desexualized.” And I’m like, “Um hi, I’m a sexy human being.”

And also, just because she doesn’t have a male interest, doesn’t mean she’s not sexy.

Oh my gosh, you have no idea… The creators of our live-action wanted to really strip down to the bare bones of her, trying to figure her out as a character, [and] what her preferences are. And that was everything from her excitement over seeing a dog for the first time, to her sexuality and her figuring out and experimenting and trying to understand “Who am I? What do I like?” I actually thought that was a really clever, interesting device for her self-discovery.

Another interesting change was that Whitney is now a woman who pretended to be Faye’s mom. And when Faye is watching the video of her younger self and hearing her real mom’s voice on the tape, it seems to be stressing the importance of a mother figure in her life. Is that something that you wanted to explore?

Yeah, I did. In fact, that video she watches of herself, that’s a very famous moment from the anime. I think the thing that really breaks Faye’s heart in that moment is the fact that, at some point in her life, she was loved. Somebody loved her, and that has not been her reality. She doesn’t even know what that’s like, because she’s only fended for herself. She’s only hit the ground running. She’s only been forced to be a survivor in the most extreme way. So the notion that someone nurtured her and cared for her and loved her seemed so heartbreaking and far away. She can’t even relate with it. That device of having the mothers’ voices is something that will likely be explored in season two, if there is a season two.

And what was that like for you as an actor doing that scene?

It was so sad! I was genuinely very sad. They played the audio from the original anime in that scene. And I didn’t have to reach to try to be upset. I don’t know if it’s the music; there’s just something that is so inherently heartbreaking about that whole scene.

What do you hope people take away from the show?

It’s been a really, really hard two years. Whether it’s COVID, the political landscape, I mean, there’s just so many things that have been so heartbreaking and exhausting. And so I hope that when people watch our show, that they forget about their problems and they have a really, really fun escape. There’s something in it for everyone. If you’re into Westerns, if you’re into noir, if you love sci-fi, if you love the anime, if you’ve never seen the anime, if you’re older, if you’re younger. I just hope that you can turn on Netflix and forget about everything else.

And would you be down for a second season if the opportunity arises?

Oh, of course. Are you kidding? Yeah, absolutely. I think we all would be.

Are there other parts of Faye that you want to keep exploring?

Yeah. Her more femme fatale attitude toward things. This is still a character who’s developing. I’d like to see her dip more into her feminine side, but also, more importantly than anything else, I want to see Faye get some answers and see if that brings her solace. Find out who she is, who her family is, and hopefully get those mysterious plot points answered.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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