Eloise Mumford takes the spotlight in Amazon Prime’s latest hit, the crime thriller CROSS, based on the #1 hero created by New York Times bestselling author James Patterson. Eloise plays Shannon Witmer, a pivotal character and the main victim whom Cross fights to save throughout the series. All episodes are now available for streaming, and the show has held the #1 spot worldwide since its release!
Eloise is best known for her role as Kate Kavanagh in Universal Pictures’ Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, where she portrayed Anastasia’s (Dakota Johnson) best friend and roommate, who begins a relationship with Christian Grey’s older brother. Previously, Eloise brought to life Trudy Cooper, wife of astronaut Gordon Cooper and an accomplished pilot herself, in Nat Geo/Disney+’s series The Right Stuff, adapted from Tom Wolfe’s book. She also starred alongside Billy Crystal and Ben Schwartz in the film Standing Up, Falling Down, a comedy that premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival.
A native of Washington State and a 2009 Tisch/NYU graduate, Eloise understudied Elizabeth Moss in Speed the Plow on Broadway while still in college and later performed alongside William H. Macy and Raul Esparza. On television, Eloise has had recurring roles on NBC’s Chicago Fire and starred in FOX’s Lone Star and ABC’s The River.
CROSS presents an intense and emotional storyline, with your character, Shannon Witmer, at the center of a plot filled with twists and turns. How did you prepare to portray someone in such a vulnerable yet pivotal position for the show’s development?
I really wanted to take the audience on a journey through Shannon’s eyes- I figured that if they cared about her, on a human level, it would give the whole story even higher stakes. So it was very important to me to honor what the writers created with her: a victim who was more than a victim, who was a complex and complicated person, living through the unimaginable. I decided to layer the seven stages of grief onto her arc, so that every time you see her on screen she is in a different stage of grief, allowing her journey to be always changing, always moving towards something. This gave me a framework to play within, and allowed me to keep her active even while captive. I wanted to very thoughtfully fill every second you saw her on screen.
From Kate Kavanagh in Fifty Shades of Grey to Shannon Witmer in CROSS, you’ve played women in vastly different contexts and challenges. How do you connect these diverse experiences to create authentic and memorable roles?
My north star with any role I step into is to make sure that when people watch it on screen, they see a piece of themselves. I want to reflect shared human experience back to the audience- and in that, hopefully make someone feel less alone, or feel seen, or part of a greater whole. And then also, of course, to just entertain. But life is messy, people are flawed, people are doing their best while their hearts quietly break. I try to not be scared to show that- and to also show the unsung delights of our lives, like female friendship and a moment alone. I always come back to humanity, and hope that it connects with whoever is watching.
In The Right Stuff, you brought Trudy Cooper to life—a woman with remarkable dreams and skills, navigating a challenging era for female pilots. What reflections did you have while portraying someone so inspiring, and how did this role shape your perspective on the barriers women have faced throughout history?
I loved playing Trudy so much- I fell in such love with her, and I felt really lucky to get to step into her shoes. What really sunk in for me while playing her is the profound heartbreak that women have experienced through history and still are experiencing: the sinking knowledge that while society has made strides towards equal rights for women, we still have so so far to go. In 1957, Trudy was living in an era when women weren’t allowed to have their own credit card- and they wouldn’t be for almost another 20 years. Yet both my parents were alive then: this is not ancient history. The people running the space program at knew that women would make better astronauts based on all of the metrics they cared about- except they were women and sexism ruled. So all of the best female pilots, like Trudy Cooper, were passed over and a woman would not go to space until 1983. It hit me on a gut level, learning all this, that we stand on the shoulders of the women who came before us, who fought for rights that we take for granted today, and that we are a part of this chain which is not completed. Our daughters will stand on our shoulders, hopefully with the rights we are still fighting for today, and on and on. Hopefully someday it will be taken for granted that a woman could be president. Our generation is not at the finish line. We have so far to go.
Even before graduating, you had the chance to work alongside Elizabeth Moss and share the stage with big names like William H. Macy. What lessons from those early experiences do you still carry with you in your career?
Yes! I understudied Elizabeth Moss in SPEED THE PLOW on Broadway- and went on just once for her, while she was collecting a SAG award in LA. That experience was one of the most formative in my life- for many reasons- but maybe most of all because it was the most terrifying leap of faith to perform a broadway show with some of the best actors working in front of a packed audience when I had never ever even run the show with the cast. I learned in that moment that all you can do is prepare your butt off and then leap. It was the most exhilarating experience- and whenever I’m nervous at work now, I think that nothing will ever be as terrifyingly wonderful as that experience- and I made it through.
From comedies like Standing Up, Falling Down to thrillers like CROSS, you’ve worked across various film genres. How has this versatility enriched your approach as an actress, and is there a genre you’d love to explore more?
I love a challenge, which has been terrible for my dating life in my past but incredibly rewarding when it comes to work. I love working across genres- but no matter the genre, I always begin the approach to the character the same way: by finding what they are in love with, and learning enough about it to fall in love myself in some way, big or small. For Shannon, that meant learning as much as I could about art curation and art history- and developing a deep appreciation for it. In the future, I would love to work more in period pieces- I’m smitten with that genre.
As a native of Washington state, how have your roots influenced your journey as an artist? Is there something specific from your hometown that you strive to bring into your life or work?
There is a certain grounded, can-do attitude in the PNW and I try to bring that to my work life, always. There’s a beautifully unadorned authenticity to most people who live here, an emotional earnestness, and I think that’s an important thing to layer into characters, allowing them to feel deeply real. I’m also lucky enough that my hometown had a robust local theater scene which I was deeply submerged in from a young age and absolutely is why I am an actor still.
From your days studying at Tisch to landing prominent roles, your journey has been incredible. If you could give one piece of advice to the younger Eloise just starting college, what would you tell her about perseverance, learning, and the art of acting?
These questions are so nice! This journey has been nothing like what I thought it would be- and I’m incredibly grateful I didn’t know how tough it would be when I was young because I think you need that fearless naiveté. I think I would tell her work just as hard, but to find some time to just soak up the moments a little more. I had a laser focus, and most of that was because I literally couldn’t afford to not work, so my drive was gutteral, but if I could go back and do it again I would steal a few moments of play. This journey is long and a rollercoaster of joy and disappointment, and all we can do is work supremely hard while also trying to enjoy the ride. There is so much outside our control- and it’s also our own precious life, so we better soak it up.
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