PEOPLE DON’T JUST WANT A HOT FEMALE IN LYCRA WITH A GUN
WHEN David Farr wrote action thriller Hanna, he had his daughters in mind.
“It was with this feeling that my daughters were not being given a broad canvas of female characters they could really enjoy,” reflects the Guildford-born stage director, screenwriter, and playwright.
Released in 2011, and starring Saoirse Ronan, the film tells of a fierce 16-year -old raised in the Finnish wilds by her ex-CIA father, and trained as an assassin.
The Amazon Prime Video series which followed, is returning for series two.
David did the TV show “to take the character into new terrain. I didn’t do the show to tell the same story”.
Here, David, and stars Esme Creed-Miles, Yasmin Monet Prince and Dermot Mulroney, tell us more.
SETTING THE SCENE
Charlie Creed-Miles), discover she is not the only young woman with elite training. In fact, the Utrax programme has produced a whole contingent of highly trained teenagers.
In series two, Hanna risks her freedom to rescue her friend Clara (Yasmin), with the help of a former nemesis, CIA agent Marissa.
NEW DIRECTION
ON what to expect from series two, Esme hints we see Hanna deal with grief, and “build incredibly complex relationships”.
“The show is fantastic; it combines drama and thriller brilliantly and to have the opportunity to explore both themes, in one show, I think is unique and I feel very lucky to be doing that,” notes the Londoner,
Clara between the series is that we “now see more of a personality”.
On a personal level, they were also excited by filming in places such as Paris and Barcelona.
“It’s one of the wonderful things about what we do, and it definitely feeds into performances,” enthuses Esme. “Being an actress, being able to travel the world is such a
NEW BADDIE
JOINING the cast this series is Hollywood star Dermot Mulroney, famous for films such as My Best Friend’s Wedding alongside Julia Roberts.
The 56-year-old plays John Carmichael, who took over Utrax from Marissa after Hanna’s escape. His job is to make trainees ready for missions and he’s prepared to do whatever it takes to protect Utrax.
Virginia-born Dermot says David helped him shape the character.
“My impulses were to darken it and be the ‘bad guy at the computer’, but he said ‘look, this is a guy who really cares about the programme’. He helped me understand how important it was that you lay it on like a comfortable blanket, and let the actual horror of his program reveal itself.
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“It takes the entire season to really get why John Carmichael operates the way he does.
“You learn that he wants so badly to keep the status quo, keep the government hand on the state of the world, that he’s willing to eliminate future threats.”
STRONG FEMALES
DISCUSSING how the landscape of the TV and film industry has evolved, David suggests there has been “a change in the notion of ownership, both in terms of literally, who tells the stories, but also authorship of characters”.
“People don’t just want a female character who’s a lead with a machine gun, but still looks hot with a Lycra suit, that’s not what we need now.
“Hanna is about a young woman engaging with choices and how choices are restricted by organisations and structures and society and power.”