Emmy Rossum Says "Weapons Training Was Key" For Her 'Furious' Role

To build FBI agent Alice Black, the protagonist of Furious, the new Disney+ series, Emmy Rossum didn’t turn to other police shows for reference. Instead, the actress underwent tactical and firearms training alongside real FBI agents, and she says that detail became the true turning point in shaping her character.

"The gun was my way into the character," Rossum told Omelete in an exclusive interview, explaining that understanding the physical relationship between Alice and the weapon changed how she saw the role on an almost cellular level. According to the actress, the gun becomes an extension of the protagonist’s body: it stays by her bed at night, and Alice doesn’t even step into the shower without thinking about having it nearby.

That kind of constant vigilance, Rossum said, is a direct reflection of what she observed in the women she trained with among real police officers and agents. The actress said she came to understand hypervigilance not as a stylistic trait of the genre, but as a real consequence of the job—something that affects these women’s lives far beyond working hours.

Rossum, who is also an executive producer on the series, says the commitment to realism didn’t come only from her own research: it was built together with creator Liz Meriwether from the script development stage. "We always started from real people, real protocols, and real cases. Having that grounding in reality was always something we aimed for," she said.

The result, according to the actress, is an Alice whose pain is not just a personality trait, but something that practically gives her a "superpower" to do this job and solve the case, while at the same time shutting down other parts of her life. It’s that balance between strength and dysfunction that Rossum says she tried to bring to every scene in order to honor Alice’s nature as much as possible.

Furious is now streaming on Disney+.