Dead Hot stars on how Charlotte Coben series compares with Harlan’s shows
Bilal Hasna and Vivian Oparah spoke exclusively with RadioTimes.com about the new Prime Video series.
New Prime Video thriller series Dead Hot comes from Charlotte Coben, the daughter of author Harlan Coben, who is known for his shocking, twisty plots in novels which have been adapted as series including The Stranger and Fool Me Once.
Charlotte has worked on her father's shows before, but now she is striking out on her own, having created the new series which stars Bilal Hasna and Vivian Oparah as two friends, Elliot and Jess who are united in the grief of losing Peter, Elliot's boyfriend and Jess's twin brother.
Five years after Peter went missing under mysterious circumstances, the pair find themselves pulled into a situation remarkably similar to Peter's disappearance, and come to wonder whether he might still be alive.
Hasna and Oparah spoke with RadioTimes.com exclusively about the new series, and Hasna explained what fans of Harlan Coben's series and novels can expect from Charlotte's show.
He said: "I think Charlotte really shares in her father's sophisticated, knotty plotlines, that are often quite surprising, and often quite thrilling, and take you by surprise.
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"But I think, whereas Harlan’s stuff feels more naturalistic across the board, I think Charlotte has a slightly different aesthetic, that does have to do with that larger than life, and camp and colourful and hyper-poppy world, and using that world to understand the realism of certain kinds of relationships or certain kinds of emotions.
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"So, I think they're like a Venn diagram, but they're both quite different as well."
Meanwhile, speaking on those twists and turns that both the Cobens are known for, Oparah revealed that the cast only received the first three scripts before signing on, meaning that they didn't know entirely how the central mystery would play out.
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She said: "We only got the first three episodes, and I actually think that was quite helpful, because there's so many twists and turns, and trying to map your character’s arc against these twists and turns is impossible.
"Also, I feel like the circumstances are so rare and there's a necessity for the immediacy of both their reactions. I didn't want it to be contrived whatsoever and I'm sure you feel the same. So not knowing what was coming was actually kind of useful."
Asked whether they were able to guess the twists, Oparah said: "We guessed, but we were wrong."
Dead Hot will premiere on Prime Video on Friday 1st March. Try Amazon Prime Video for free for 30 days. Plus, read our guides to the best Amazon Prime series and the best movies on Amazon Prime.
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