Shelley Hennig stars as Ava Winters in Obliterated. All eight episodes of the action-comedy’s first season are currently streaming on Netflix.

Obliterated is a high octane action-comedy that tells the story of an elite special forces team who thwarts a deadly threat to Las Vegas. After their celebratory party, filled with booze, drugs and sex, the team discovers that the bomb they deactivated was a fake. The now intoxicated team has to fight through their impairments, overcome their personal issues, find the real bomb, and save the world.

I had the opportunity to catch up with the actress over Zoom to discuss how the show constantly challenged her, why she responded to her character, the gift she got from C. Thomas Howell, the love story between Ava and Chad, and more. Keep reading for everything she shared with me!

I have been dying to talk with you about this project and yesterday, I realized that we started the year by talking about Teen Wolf: The Movie, and now we’re ending it by talking about Obliterated and it makes me so happy.
Shelley Hennig: How lucky am I?

No, how lucky am I? Thank you for being willing to do this and talk to me all the time.
Always! Anytime, Sophia. 

Congratulations on this incredible show. I had so much fun binge-watching it. So many fans, myself included, grew up with you and have stuck with you, especially the Teen Wolf fans. I feel like the teen genre creates such a passionate fan base because you’re on screen during such a crucial time for audiences. How does it feel to see them not only continuing to follow your work after all this time but now growing with you for an R-rated series? 
Well, I’m petrified, so I haven’t interacted with them yet. I don’t know what they think. I don’t know if they’re proud of me, if they’re devastated that they’ve seen more than they should — actually to be fair, I do show my butt in Teen Wolf: The Movie, which by the way, I asked if I could do that because I knew a week later, I was filming the sex scene for episode one of Obliterated. 

Oh, they were so close. 
Well, COVID happened, someone got COVID on set in Albuquerque for Obliterated, so we had a week off and that’s when I was able to go and finish Teen Wolf: The Movie. We got very lucky and the reason we had to finish it is because I got COVID on my last day of filming in Atlanta for Teen Wolf. So I was just like, “I have to get back there and finish this.” Unfortunately, somebody else got COVID, which allowed me to go finish the movie. But anyway, I requested that I show my butt in Teen Wolf so that I could get used to what that felt like and I’m glad I did because it took us 10 hours to film that sex scene for Obliterated. So, I got my feet wet before that one.

Well, I guess I could be the spokesperson here and say that I’m proud of you, we’re all proud of you. Everyone loves the show, are you kidding? 
The thing about the Teen Wolf fans is they just get younger and younger. I can almost predict when I get a certain look and I’m out in public, like, and I see their age, I know it’s Teen Wolf and it’s so fascinating that it just keeps living on with a new generation. 

It’s one of those shows.
It’s so cool. 

I think Obliterated is just such a perfect combination of so many things. It has such an interesting story concept, you have the R-rating, and you also have Las Vegas, which is the perfect setting. The setting doesn’t always matter in a story, but it adds here. What did you like the most about the way everything kind of came together? 
I was just never bored. I mean, I was challenged out of my mind. But I think after doing this for 16 years, I was ready for this responsibility and I mean, you had to be and Jon, Josh, and Hayden knew that. So I think we were all just really happy to be there, not to sound cheesy and basic, but I think we were ready for this and it was action-packed on and off camera. As an actor, you don’t always get used and abused and I say that lovingly, as in I like to be used and abused, and that’s just my terminology, but on a project because I don’t like just sitting still and having to wait. They say that’s why actors get paid, is to sit around and wait. It’s really difficult and usually, if you’re an actor, because it is a tough industry to get into and a tough one to maintain, if you get the opportunity to be on set, you want to work.

And that’s what I loved about this, is so much was asked of every single one of us and I felt like I got used in the best way. We had a party previous to starting the shoot and I was having a beer with Hayden and I just remember being like, “Hey, I don’t have kids, I don’t have a dog, I don’t have a boyfriend, use me. I am here and I’m ready, use me.” Next thing I know, my character is speaking Russian, I have a dance sequence, I’m hanging in a harness for eight hours at a time, I’m shooting a 10-hour sex scene, I’m filming with Lori Petty, just you name it, they were throwing it at me and at all of us. I think that’s something we’re all really proud of, that it came out the way that it did with those challenges and we did it together. It was probably the biggest collaboration and biggest ensemble I’ve worked with. 

What intrigued you about Ava Winters? She is such a badass and I mean, you are such a badass, but you had to add in the fact that she’s grieving. How did you approach balancing both, making her this leader, having fun, but then also grieving a loss, was there any sort of method? 
I’ve always looked up to actors who can do both, especially in real-time. I love Leslie Mann, she is so great at doing both and at the same time, like crying and being dramatic at the same time and that is not easy. I just like to pile it on. I like challenges and I mean, to be honest, I responded to Ava. She was immediate in the script and I don’t know, I don’t overthink things. I just read it and I was like, ‘I can do this.’ It just felt right. Not that it was easy playing her but as far as just putting it on tape, I understood why my buddy Ben Lawson called me and was like, “Hey, did you go out for Obliterated yet?” I looked at my email and I was like, “Shit, I passed on it.” I thought it was a drama, I was in the middle of night shoots in Atlanta doing Teen Wolf and I just missed it. Thank God Ben Lawson saved my life. But yeah, so then when I read it, I was like, ‘Oh, I see why Ben thought of me.’ It’s tricky, Ava’s tricky. You can’t come across [as] too bossy and too aggressive and non-emotional and like, you have to find the layers and the levels. For whatever reason, that was something I could connect to and I feel like do well, but there were still a lot of challenges.

Yeah, I think it’s fascinating to try to have to play a woman in power because so many people criticize them, like you said. It makes me so angry.
It’s exhausting to have to overthink that and I really tried, especially in the last five years, to let that go, but because Jon, Josh, and Hayden specifically wrote that scene where Ava in the first episode is in the shower by herself, that gave us insight to her vulnerability very early on. So that made it less hard for me to — I didn’t have to think so much about, ‘Is she too much? Is she too aggressive and not a collaborator with everyone?’ But the stakes are high, so you also forgive her because of that. 

If you could make your own elite special forces team, only using your past characters or characters that you love from shows that you watch and are your personal favorite, who would be on your team? 
Nathan Fielder. I feel like he can convince people to do things without getting caught. We got to throw in Malia from Teen Wolf, come on now. Let’s just end with that, what a duo.

I mean, when you have Malia, you really don’t need anyone else. 
I just keep thinking of menaces like Steve Urkel and Zack Morris. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but like we just menace our way through to save the world. 

Can we talk about you working with a legend, aka C. Thomas Howell, how was that? 
Amazing. He gave me a cowboy hat when we were in Albuquerque. I was going horseback riding at one point before we started filming and things got crazy, and I was asking people if they had one and he overheard me and he was like, “I do.” Then he gave it to me and then he said I could keep it and I legit wear this.

That should be your prized possession. 
It is. Like, it’s decor in my house. It’s really special. He needs to sign it, so next time I see him, I’m gonna get him to sign it. Now that we’re done with season one, I can fangirl. No, he’s amazing and Nick and I were just constantly surprised at how much of a scene-stealer he is. Not surprised, but like, his character is passed out half of the show and he’d still steal the scene. It’d just be like an arm drop, a burp, a fart, or a breath, and Nick and I just would be like, “How’d he… we didn’t even,” so we learned a lot watching him. Lori Petty just came in killing it. She is so special. We were so lucky to have the people that we had and we were just so pumped. The show is causing a stir and that’s all we wanted.

Well, I’m ready for season two. What do you want for season two? Like, if you could pick anything in the world, either for your character or the series in general, what is one thing on your bucket list that you want to see done? 
It’s gotta be somewhere tropical and Ava has to be on Ayahuasca. 

That’s the pitch.
That’s it. 

How could Netflix say no to that? 
I don’t know.

When I watch things that have a lot of action, I often think, ‘Oh my gosh, how are they doing this?’ Movie magic, obviously, but there must be a lot of sequences that you read as an actor that are fun on the page, but then when you step back, maybe you’re like, ‘Oh, how are we doing this?’ Did you have one that you were either impressed with your performance, how you got it done, or how it came out all together? 
I’m a very trusting person. I just don’t think past those, I’m like, “Oh, great, she does this, she does that.” Then, you’re on the day there but obviously, we have an incredible stunt team with us and Mallory Thompson, we grew up in neighboring towns and never met until Hollywood, she was my double on Ouija and I mean, that was some years ago, so we’ve been friends ever since. So I always request her and thank God she was available, she was able to come in for somewhere in the middle of the shoot, maybe before the middle, but anyway, she was there mostly with me and she’s incredible. I just trust her. I did a lot of action on Teen Wolf, I was a former dancer, and I’ve done acrobats, so they hurt more in your 30s but I’m pretty athletic. I’m not going to drop 50 feet from a cliff, that was not me. But I was hanging in a harness holding on to a fake cliff and that’s still kind of scary. I was actually really high up, but you’re on a harness. Yeah, I don’t think it through. I just show up and then they tell me what to do, we rehearse it, and then I do it. I’m a very trusting person.

Lastly, I want to ask you about the dynamic between Ava and Chad. What was it like to bring that relationship to life with Nick Zano? Was that your favorite dynamic? I personally loved them. 
I have so many favorite dynamics on this show, it’s really hard to rank but I do think that one’s very important. It’s the love story throughout and the heart, the heart love story, because obviously, we have C. Thomas Howell and Lindsey Kraft, who I also love, their love story and you have Gomez (Paola) with Sarah, but Chad and Ava are kind of the throughline with the heartfelt love story that’s atypical, which I love. Nick and I just got on right on our first Zoom. It was just immediate and we already had a virtual handshake right off the bat. We felt it, it was right and I’m so glad he was my partner in crime on this because it was a demanding shoot. We knew it was, we were so ready for it. We never said no, we always gave it our best and we kept inspiring each other every day. We’d have our little chats on our trailer stoops and we took care of each other. It was really special.