Glenn Howerton from ‘Sirens’ believes Milly Alcock’s character Simone is a Survivor, not a Monster

The new Netflix show Sirens attempts to reframe the narrative around mythological seductresses who are typically portrayed as leading men to their demise. Instead of casting these alluring figures as villains, Sirens delves into the complexities that make them captivating yet deeply wounded characters.

Illustratively, the series unfolds a tangled love story between a young Simone DeWitt (Milly Alcock) and her older, affluent paramour Ethan Corbin II (Glenn Howerton)…

**Spoilers for all five episodes of Sirens, now streaming on Netflix**

Simone is introduced to viewers while discreetly leaving Ethan’s opulent residence to make it to her job working for the wealthy Michaela Kell (Julianne Moore) punctually. Ethan happens to be close friends with Peter (Kevin Bacon), Michaela’s husband, and has a reputation as a notorious womanizer. Despite this, Simone is convinced that their connection is genuine, even if it only exists as a clandestine affair during the summer.

Everything goes topsy turvy, however, when Ethan decides to actually get serious about Simone. He flies to Buffalo to get her ailing father Bruce’s (Bill Camp) blessing only to foolishly brings Bruce and his “nurse” Raymond (Josh Segarra) back to Martha’s Vineyard with him. Ethan thinks he’s concocted the dream proposal for Simone. What he doesn’t realize is that Simone keeps her distance from her father because he neglected her after her mother’s death, forcing the young child into the abusive foster care system.

Simone ultimately rejects Ethan, which sends the vain man into a emotional tailspin. A drunk Ethan viciously calls Simone a “monster” and blames her for his own fall off a dangerously high cliff. Although Ethan doesn’t die, he does experience his first true failure in life.

“It feels as though the siren has called me and I’ve crashed upon the rocks,” Sirens star Glenn Howerton told DECIDER earlier this week. “She’s the siren who has ruined my life.”

Howerton also revealed whether or not Ethan ever truly loved or understood Simone, how he’ll ultimately feel about her, and why he never bothered listening to Raymond’s frequent (funny) protestations that, no, he’s not a nurse…

DECIDER: Ethan and Simone’s romance is so complex, especially from the start. What was it like working with Milly to develop that? And do you think there’s any part of your character who ever really understood or loved Simone for who she was?

GLENN HOWERTON: I think that he genuinely, genuinely loved Simone and loves Simone. Or at least he thinks he does. But it’s like, how do you distinguish between the two if you’re feeling it, right? You’re either feeling it or you’re not. Now, was it like real love, like lasting love? No, because it wasn’t really based on who she was as much as it was based on his idea of her. I think he idealized her and romanticized her. And I think she allowed it to happen because she was swept up in the whole thing as well. So it’s quite tragic in that regard.

As far as building all of that with Milly, you know she’s… What you want in a scene partner is somebody who’s wonderfully generous and open and available to be there for your choices and that it feels like you’re working with somebody who is really listening in the scene and she is definitely that. I mean there’s a reason why she is having the career that she’s having right now. She’s extraordinarily talented and really fun to work with and that makes a big difference for me. I think you can play intense scenes, but I think on some level the set should be kind of fun. If you’re playing something intense the whole way and you can’t participate in that fun, that’s one thing. Anyway, she just contributed to a good energy on set and it was a lot of fun to work with her.

Halfway through the series, your character brings Bill Camp’s character and Josh Segarra’s character into this world, and it’s so funny. Especially when you guys keep calling Josh’s character the nurse. And I’m just curious, did you play it out in your mind how he decided to bring this nurse along and it ever occurred to him to really listen to the protestations and stop calling him the nurse?

I think, again, it just really goes to show you what a terrible listener Ethan is, right? Like, I think he wants everything to fit into his little understanding of things. He saw a man who was making sure that another man was taking his medication. That’s all he saw, right? And so I’m like, “Okay, well, I don’t want to be responsible for giving this man his medication, so I’ll bring his nurse.” Then I’m sure that it’s not that I couldn’t hear his protestations and didn’t hear him saying, “I’m not his nurse.” But in my mind, I was thinking, “But you are his nurse. Because you’re giving him pills. So you’re his nurse.”

I think there’s a lot of comedy in that, obviously. But you do have to, as an actor, you have to justify, like, “How am I hearing this person say, ‘I’m not his nurse,’ over and over again, and still keep calling him a nurse without being a total moron?” So that’s how I justified it. It’s kind of like, “Okay, he doesn’t like being called a nurse, but I mean, he’s a nurse. So I’m gonna call him nurse.”

One of your most dramatic moments is when your character is drunk and yelling at Simone calling her a monster. Do you think ultimately he thinks Simone is a monster at the end? Do you thing Simone is a monster? And what was the most challenging or fun part of going off the rails that way?

Well, no, I definitely don’t. I, Glenn, don’t think that Simone is a monster. I think she’s a survivor and I think she’s well within her rights to make whatever life decisions she chooses to make. It’s just that Ethan couldn’t handle that because he’s never experienced that level of rejection or failure. He’s never really had to work for anything, you know? And I think, also for him, who has, and it’s established, had all of these flings with all these young women every summer. At least in his mind, every one of those women would have married him. They all wanted to marry him and he knew that. I think he used it, frankly, to his advantage. This was the first time that I finally was like, “Yes, okay, finally, I’ve met one and I choose you.” And she was like, “No.” And I’m like, “Wait, what?!” It’s inconceivable to me.

So that level of hurt that I feel, it feels as though the siren has called me and I’ve crashed upon the rocks and it’s your fault. But it’s not her fault, it’s my fault. But I need someone to blame. I blame her. She’s the siren who has ruined my life. So Ethan, certainly in that moment, thinks that she’s a bad person. I think he will eventually come to learn far after the series ends that she wasn’t.

This interview has been condensed and formatted for clarity.