Girl Taken's Jill Halfpenny says thriller explores "special kind of hell" she wouldn't wish upon her worst enemy
"That, for me, is far worse than knowing what's happened..."
Jill Halfpenny has said that her latest work explores a subject so harrowing she “wouldn’t inflict it on her worst enemy”.
“If your child is abducted, I think that's a special kind of hell that you've been put in,” she said of Paramount Plus’s Girl Taken. Adapted from Hollie Overton's novel Baby Doll, the drama follows Halfpenny’s character, Eve, who is thrown into turmoil when one of her twin daughters is abducted and held captive for half a decade before managing to escape.
“That, for me, is far worse than knowing what's happened — even if what's happened is that they’re dead,” she added. “Because living in an area of, ‘Are they alive? Are they dead? Are they being hurt? Are they being abused?’ — that is just a hell that I would not wish upon my worst enemy.”
For Halfpenny, the role also stirred memories of the programmes she watched growing up about kidnapped or missing children.
“I remember watching the parents being interviewed and thinking, ‘The fact that you can get out of bed, the fact that you can sit here and even be compos mentis, is blowing my mind,’ because I would probably spontaneously combust with the pressure cooker of rage and grief inside me.
“I just think it's a hideous — I mean, of course it's a hideous thing to happen — but it's the not knowing. That’s when you have to tap into some other entity. Some people turn to religion, some people turn to distraction, to booze, to love, to whatever — something to escape from that feeling.
“But my God, you have to turn to something.”
Girl Taken tells the story of “twin sisters Lily and Abby, whose lives are shattered when Lily is abducted from their quiet rural English town by beloved local teacher Rick Hansen,” according to the official synopsis.
“After years of abuse in captivity, Lily escapes — only to discover that freedom brings its own challenges. The world she longed to return to has moved on without her.
“As Abby, Lily and their mother Eve struggle to rebuild their family, they must confront the lasting damage — and the terrifying reality that Rick is still out there, determined to control the narrative and evade justice.”
Speaking about why Girl Taken spends only a fraction of the series focusing on the abduction, before shifting its attention to the impact on Lily and her family in the aftermath, Halfpenny said: “It’s really important for people — for all of us — to remember that when a crime has been committed, when someone has been raped, abused, scared or frightened, whether they’re held captive or not, you don’t just come home and think, ‘Now I’ll just live my life.’ You have to unpick what happened.
“When you listen to people who’ve been attacked and it’s happened in one night, that in itself is a lifelong process — to unpick what happened on that night, to not blame yourself, to wonder why it happened, to think, ‘Could I have done anything different?’
“But can you imagine having to unpick five years? It’s unfathomable, really, and it would take a bloody good psychologist — and years and years of therapy — for Lily’s character to get to grips with not feeling like that defines her.”
Alfie Allen (Game of Thrones, Atomic) and Jill Halfpenny (The Cuckoo, After the Flood) play Rick and Eve respectively, while sisters Tallulah (The Forsyte Saga, My Fault: London) and Delphi Evans take on the roles of Lily and Abby.
Supporting the cast are Vikash Bhai (Limbo, Virdee), Niamh Walsh (Smother, Jamestown), Levi Brown (This Town, Invasion), Victoria Ekanoye (The Turkish Detective, The Royals, Coronation Street), Holly Atkins (Mobland, Criminal Justice) and Kiran Krishnakumar (What It Feels Like for a Girl, Everything Now).
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Girl Taken will debut on Paramount Plus on Thursday 8th January 2026. Season 1 is available to stream on now. Get a seven day free Paramount Plus trial at Amazon Prime Video.
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Authors
Abby Robinson is the Drama Editor for Radio Times, covering TV drama and comedy titles. She previously worked at Digital Spy as a TV writer, and as a content writer at Mumsnet. She possesses a postgraduate diploma and a degree in English Studies.
