SkyShowtime He has a new and juicy bet on his hands. Neil Cross (Luther) signature The Iris affair a thriller starring Niamh Algar and Tom Hollander which promises to keep you hooked until the last episode. The plot follows enigmatic genius Iris Nixon (Algar), who, after solving a series of riddles online, arrives in a Florence square where she meets charismatic businessman Cameron Beck (Hollander).
He invites her to work for him to unlock powerful top-secret technology, which piques her curiosity and she accepts the proposal. But when Iris discovers the technology’s dangerous potential, she steals the journal containing the device’s activation sequence and disappears.
The disappearance sparks a relentless search from a remote Sardinian cabin and through the crowded streets of Rome, as Cameron races to find Iris in a risky game where trust is dangerous and failure can be catastrophic. We spoke to Cross about his new bet, now available on SkyShowtime.
Who are you writing for today? Do you write for yourself, for your audience, who do you think of when you have a new project to develop?
Basically, I just write for myself. And even when I hire other writers to work with me, I always tell them that I’m only interested in reading what those who do write, whether they’re published or not. I started writing around the age of six or seven, creating comic strip pages in which the drawings seemed easier to me than the speech bubbles. I never knew what to write, so I reversed course, I started writing dialogues and then supplementing them with drawings.
This series, at least visually, is more brilliant than other work you have done in your career. Do you think the critics and awards will like it? It seems that prestige rhymes with darkness.
Totally agree. It’s a mystery I’m constantly confronted with. I think people confuse seriousness with intellectual weight. But the works that deal with the fundamental ideas of our existence, the supreme works of our race, would be nothing without humor, for it is an integral part of who we are.
I haven’t read Don Quixote, but it is the best, the first, the greatest novel of humanity, and it is fundamentally comic. I’m going to get in trouble: in the most excellent places in our industry, there are people who don’t have confidence in their intelligence. They feel that, to compensate for this insecurity, they must be excessively serious and dark.
So create something like The Iris affair Does this mean you are at a point in your career where you have nothing to prove to anyone?
I don’t care what all these people think. As I mentioned, I grew up surrounded by comics, at a time when reading comics was marginal, it didn’t make you many friends. In the 80s I played non-stop Dungeons and Dragons. I miss him a lot. I have never sought validation from a higher echelon, from an intellectual elite, their judgment does not interest me at all.
And your audience? Do you feel like you have followers, people who follow you and are excited about what you’re going to do next?
I have no relationship with them, I spend little time on the Internet, I don’t live there. I’ve never looked at Twitter and I don’t understand what Instagram is. I don’t interact with them that way. I know they exist, but if I’m honest, I think that praise can carry a special danger, just like the danger that comes from insults.
The only thing I can do is move forward in my solitude, in my little boat, and tell my stories. We had a New York premiere for the film Luther and it was great, there were a lot of fans. But beyond special occasions like this, I remain a mystery, as far away from the attention of others as possible.
Who was Nigel Kneale and why does he continue to inspire you?
He was a British television writer who created something we might today define as “cosmic horror.” He created very ambitious, commercial and terrifying films and series, and he did it very successfully, he knew how to connect with the audience. There was a recurring character named Bernard Quatermass, an astronaut who had returned to Earth but who, during his travels, had ceased to be the man we once knew. I think he was the best screenwriter the UK has ever had. I’m not going to say it’s a copy, but Doctor Who This wouldn’t have happened without Nigel Kneale and without Quatermass.
Return to The Iris affair Let’s talk about the main characters. When did you discover who they were and how the end result is similar to what you had in mind at the beginning?
How interesting, let me think. Iris, the character, I quickly knew who she was. There’s a lot of Hitchcock, of Patricia Highsmith, but it’s very particular, contradictory. The idea of women as anti-heroes hasn’t been explored much. I had all these references in mind and thought it would be impossible to find the perfect actress, until my team said ‘you’re looking for Niamh Algar’. We auditioned her the next day and there she was, exactly what I was looking for, we didn’t see any other actress.
Cameron Beck was the opposite of the system, I had a much longer process of falling in love with Tom Hollander. He gave a character a humanity, a charisma and a depth that a less talented actor would have wasted.
While watching the series, I thought of a Michael Caine anecdote. He made a film called Contract in Marseille, in the south of France. When he received the script, he didn’t even read it, because who would say no to a five-week stay in the south of France? Is it easier to start writing a project if, as is the case in The Iris affair Is this taking place in Italy or somewhere sunny?
The answer is: infinitely. Before I go, I have to tell you my favorite Michael Caine anecdote.
Please.
Someone asked him if he had seen Shark: Revenge in which he had played. And he said, “No, but I saw the house he bought for my mom, and it’s amazing.”
The Iris affair is now available on SkyShowtime.
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