SHE’S ON‘STRIKE’
Holliday time: Grainger stars in J.K. Rowling series
IT’S a lot of pressure to play a J.K. Rowling character onscreen — but British actress Holliday Grainger, the star of crime drama “C.B. Strike,” says she felt relaxed about it.
“I’m a massive fan of J.K. Rowling. I loved the Harry Potter books and I loved these [‘Cormoran Strike’] books,” says Grainger, 30, of the BBC/Cinemax series, premiering Friday at 10 p.m. “But I felt almost an ownership of Robin when I first read it. I felt like she was someone that would fit easily into my friendship group.”
“C.B. Strike,” based on the first three novels of Rowling’s “Cormoran Strike” detective series — originally published in 2013 under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith — follows Cormoran Strike (Tom Burke, “The Musketeers”), a one-legged Afghanistan war vet turned private detective in London. Grainger’s character, Robin, is his temporary secretary who discovers a knack for the trade and eventually becomes his professional partner. Together they investigate cases including a supermodel’s suspicious death. “I do love the crime genre — Nordic noir like ‘ The Killing,’ ” says Grainger, who’s also appeared in Showtime’s “Patrick Melrose” and “The Borgias.” “So what’s kind of exciting to be doing a different take on it,” she says. “When I read [the books], I couldn’t pigeonhole it into a box of something that I’d seen before. The tone is a bit lighter, very contemporary, set in a tangible London that I can understand. But it still has an essence of something kind of retro about it.” “C.B. Strike,” which already aired in the U.K. under the name “Strike,” consists of seven episodes premiering June 1 on Cinemax. The story contains three closeended mysteries, even as Cormoran and Robin’s relationship develops in a serialized fashion. In the same vein as Fox’s “Bones,” the two have a mild “will they/ won’t they” dynamic in the background of the murder mysteries.
The first three episodes adapt the first novel (published in 2013); the subsequent two books play out over two episodes each. Since Rowling hasn’t published the fourth book yet, the show will not resume making more episodes until ensuing books come out.
Grainger says she wishes she was more of a geek so that she could question Rowling, who she refers to as “Jo,” more about the books. (The two chatted on the phone during production, and Grainger says “I heard she had watched my [audition] tapes and thought I was right for the part.”)
“I’m dying to ask Jo so much about Robin, a lot of it seems so personal,” she says. “If I was more of a geek and didn’t try to play it cool, I would have totally wanted to ask her more about what her inspiration for Robin was. I’ve heard a few people say they think Robin is an aspect of Jo herself. I’d love to pick her brain about exactly where certain bits of Robin’s backstory came from.”