Jenn Lyon Will Cast a Spell on You with Her Wickedly Funny Turn on ‘Dead Boy Detectives’

[Editor’s note: The following contains some spoilers for “Dead Boy Detectives.”]

Esther is exhausted (immortality can do that to a gal). When she made a deal to live forever, she forgot to factor in youth and beauty and doomed herself to centuries of feeding children to a giant snake for the world’s most potent (if immoral) beauty treatment. And as played by Jenn Lyon in Netflix’s “Dead Boy Detectives,” she’s one of the most delectable villains to hit the TV screen since “Melrose Place.”

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“She just wants to get these kids eaten already! And I really like that about her,” Lyon told IndieWire. Lyon continues her scene-stealing streak after “Claws” with Esther, described in the audition breakdown as a “burnt-out ’80s Stevie Nicks vibe” who becomes, in Lyon’s hands, the woman who always stays till last call at the dive bar.

When showrunners Steve Yockey and Beth Schwartz first saw Lyon’s self-tape, they knew they’d found their Esther, the show’s main antagonist who is hell-bent on destroying the titular undead investigators and their little psychic friend, too. “She did [burnt-out Stevie Nicks] combined with Blanche Dubois from ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and probably seven other things just in her audition tape,” Yockey told IndieWire. “We immediately sent it to the network and said, ‘This is who we would like to cast.’ And they were like, ‘We loved her on “Claws,” yes!'”

Esther’s lived a full life (and taken many, many more), but the show — described by the showrunners as “the Hardy Boys on acid” — never tries to excuse her behavior. “I never get to be a villain!” Lyon said. “I am always, like, your drunk mom, a prostitute with a heart of gold. To get to do this and not have to worry about, ‘Is she likable,’ I found to be a delight. I don’t know what that says about my character, but here we are!”

A self-described “prop whore,” Lyon had a field day with the accouterments of a centuries-old witch who has a taste for the finer things, like a fur coat, an iron cane that burns mischievous ghosts, a pipe, and a raven familiar. “That costume department and our costume designer [Kelli Dunsmore] are so brilliant,” Lyon said. “We would go into these fittings, and usually fittings are a real personal hell. You don’t feel good about yourself. I’ve cried in probably every fitting I’ve ever had. But these, we just would run around. We would get so excited. And the collaboration on it all, it was just spot on. And once I got that cane, honey, it was over.”

Lyon laughed at herself. “I hate it when you watch or listen or read interviews, and everybody’s so earnestly in love with each other. Like, I want the dirt! But I just don’t have any. Everybody was so fucking great.”

Lyon didn’t struggle to conjure up Esther when it came time to film, no matter how much fun she was having with her co-stars on the set (she joked she was separated from more than one of them at various points during shooting), though one big moment in the finale prompted a moment of introspection.

“I had this scene where I have to scream and cry, and camera was ready a lot sooner than I thought,” Lyon said. “So I had to go into the back of these soundstages and I told my makeup lady, ‘I’m gonna scream for a second,’ but I forgot to warn everyone else. And I screamed so hard, like I was losing a child, like my dog got run over, and people came running. Somebody was like, ‘Get the set medic!’ They thought my arm had been chewed off. Poor Steve said, ‘Can you just give somebody a heads up?'”

But playing a witch on a TV show in 2024 can only involve so many props. At some point, effects will come in. And while “Dead Boy Detectives” did everything practically that they could, there’s no way to weave a magic spell without a little make-believe.

“I had never done any science fiction, fantasy, anything, and I always assumed that it must be the dumbest feeling to pretend you’re on a dragon,” Lyon said. “I think 75 percent of acting is getting over the embarrassment of showing what you’re imagining in front of people. There’s a crew there that just wants to go to lunch, and you’re conjuring a dagger out of thin air. It’s an incredibly difficult feeling to overcome, to really take the space and be like, ‘No, no, this is what it looks like when I’m casting a spell.’ It was my first time doing it, and I mean, it feels dumb, but I really like it.”

And though Esther seems to be defeated by season’s end, no good villain is ever completely vanquished. “Our leads are dead, so it’s room for whatever we want to do,” Schwartz teased. Added Yockey, “And my job on ‘Supernatural’ was just to bring female characters back to life…”

“Dead Boy Detectives” is currently streaming on Netflix.

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