The Rook revels in reveals
Emma Greenwell stars in a series where superpowers take a back seat to intrigue
The Rook is a psychological thriller set in the world of espionage with a superpowered twist.
With a strong cast headlined by Emma Greenwell ( Shameless), Joely Richardson ( Nip/Tuck) and Olivia Munn ( The
Newsroom), this new Starz series that premieres tonight is the latest offering that hopes its intriguing mysteries will get you hooked this summer.
Greenwell stars as Myfanwy Thomas, who opens the series as the lone survivor at a bloody crime scene — without any memory.
As she starts to piece together who she is, she finds pre-recorded and written messages she has left for herself, detailing her very messy life, mostly stemming from her position with the rank of a Rook in the Checquy, the top-secret organization that she works for, which deals with people with powers and special abilities.
“This is sophisticated and complicated, so it requires a commitment from the viewer. It’s not going to be fed to you on a plate,” says Richardson, who plays Lady Farrier, the leader of the operatives.
“If I’m being very honest, the supernatural and sci-fi stuff is not something that I particularly watch on my personal time, but I was drawn to the quality of the writing and the story and script, and as soon I read the first, I immediately read the second and wanted more but wasn’t given it for months after,” Greenwell jokingly pouts.
“I really fell in love with the writing and the world, and sort of all the different mysteries, and how complicated it was,
and these characters all felt incredibly real to me.”
This a show of reveals and rivalries — competing interests — and so it makes sense that its spy-superhero mix is set in the intrigue-friendly city of London. British television and movies have long been excellent at telling spy stories whereas superheroes are much more of an American thing. (Greenwell arguably has the right background to notice, having been born in Connecticut but raised and educated in England. She was disconnected enough from American acting, she recently told the New York Times, that when her career eventually took her to Los Angeles — and, in time, Shameless — she had to Google what “pilot season” meant.)
The powers in The Rook’s eight episodes are not particularly showy, at least in the early going, and Richardson clarifies that they are there, but it’s as much about other things.
“Ours isn’t really superpowers, we call it special abilities, and as we’re saying everything is based on science. These are heightened abilities,” says Richardson.
“It’s really about the human story, and finding out how Myfawny can figure out what happened to her.”
It’s a series where Munn’s character can push a lock through a door or another character can control the atmosphere, knocking out or suffocating other characters.
Of particular interest are some of Myfawny’s fellow Rooks, known as the Gestalt, who are four beings — three men and one woman — who speak, think and act as one, and Greenwell’s character has been intimate with one or perhaps all of them, although exactly how that worked is one of the show’s mysteries.
“You won’t find out about how that works until the penultimate episodes,” teases Greenwell.
The series, clearly, is trying to walk the line of being a grounded series with some fantastical elements, and one example is that much of the show will revolved around human trafficking of the people with Extreme Variant Abilities a.k.a. EVAs.
The Rook is based on bestselling 2012 book by Daniel O’Malley, but in this instance, there have been several changes to story, including some supernatural elements that were a big part of the source material.
Greenwell says the series’s team knows it has told an interesting story and hopes fans of the book find enough to enjoy in this loose adaptation.
“I’m very concerned. It was a massive hit, it was a bestseller and really great book. Our show is very different to the book, in terms of storyline and plot, but Daniel O’Malley, the author, has now seen it, and I asked him, what he thought, and he said ‘I love it,’ and he thinks the fans will too,” Greenwell said.