Octavia Spencer Wants To Tell Stories About Women Who Can’t Speak for Themselves

This season not only focuses on Native women but women on the margins of society. Sex workers are particularly vulnerable, as your show depicts, but it tells their stories without judgment, which I found really admirable. Why was that vital?

I think we must embrace our most vulnerable. We don’t know why circumstance would have any of these women in positions of needing to be sex workers, but their lives have value. Valerie, who broke the case open, was a woman who lived on the streets as a sex worker, and I found her to be a hero. I think heroism comes in all shapes and sizes, from all socioeconomic and educational levels.

When we think of true crime, we think of a perpetrator and victim. We don’t think as much about how a crime impacts a bigger community. Feds shows how a crime can impact so many different people in many ways. That’s a different focus than what you have in Lost Women.

You have those who are victimized, and you have those who have to avenge them, who must resolve those cases. That’s where Feds comes in. In this season, there are kidnappings, bombings, gang violence. There’s a real-life John Wick. Talk about running the gamut of crimes that we have to have a special force for. I think these two shows are strange bedfellows. We are grateful that Discovery saw the value in telling both stories.

In Lost Women, as you mentioned, we see how marginalized communities have a lack of support from the authorities. With Feds, we see the story from the authorities’ perspective. How do you balance both sides?

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I think that in smaller communities there’s a lack of resources. There’s also a lack of resolve. There’s judgment, perhaps, because some of these women are sex workers. The difference with Feds is that the crime itself is at the center and it doesn’t matter who the victims are. They start with the crime, and they analyze all the evidence to reach the conclusion.

With Lost Women, it starts with the victim and builds the case around them. Different perspectives, for sure, but also different heroes. I see the advocates in Lost Women as heroes, acting to save other women from falling prey to two perpetrators — because they felt that they were a couple of serial killers working that area. That’s a lot of bravery and a lot of fear.

What about true crime is so fascinating to you?

I don’t know that I find it fascinating. I just have a sense of, to those who much is given, much is expected. And I see telling these stories as service to the family and to victims who can no longer speak for themselves. I also see telling these stories as a means for the survivors to have closure, because we don’t always get that. That’s truly what drives me to do this.

When did you decide you wanted to pursue producing in addition to acting?

I wanted to be a producer before I was an actor because I understand it. I see a producer as bringing together material and talent, being a person who solves puzzles. I see it as problem-solving. It’s also a means of generating work, not only for myself but for other people. I think it’s the most important role that I play, actually.

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When you’re working on projects as heavy as these, how do you leave work at work? At the end of the day, how do you shake it off and go home?

Listen, my television is usually on Investigation Discovery, so it’s not anything that I shed. Because here’s the thing: Those women, those families that have experienced these losses, they don’t get to shake it off. [I do this] in solidarity with them, wanting to ensure that we pay the most deference to their stories but also as an education to women of what’s out there in the world. And I’m inspired by, again, the bravery that we see in the women in Lost Women who survived and decided to take a stand to do whatever they could to ensure the perpetrator was caught.

Do you choose your acting projects in a similar way?

I see one as vocation and one as service. I’ve never been the type to choose an acting project based on what my role or character is. I like to see the project in its totality. Who are the storytellers? Who are the other actors? How will I grow as an actor? How does the story resonate with me? I can choose, and have chosen, very small parts to be a part of a story, or to work with a storyteller, that I found compelling.

Thinking back to your early career and now having become a producer, is there any advice that you would give yourself in those early days, with all that you know today?

If I told myself anything, it would change my course. So I would just say, Stay the course, make mistakes, learn, but just be present. I wouldn’t try to change the outcome because if I intervened in any way, it would be a completely different journey. And I love the journey that my career has taken. I don’t take anything for granted, and I don’t think that I ever have, so I wouldn’t change anything.