Harlan Coben’s Run Away cast and author tease "emotionally devastating ending" and talk "insidiousness" of addiction

This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.

All of Harlan Coben’s book ideas begin with a "What if…?" – Run Away's is, "What if my daughter was taking drugs?" – The New Jersey author explains his thinking: "When my daughter Charlotte was young, I found some cannabis paraphernalia in her room, and my mind spiralled and went out of control.

"One day I was sitting in New York’s Central Park on Strawberry Fields, which is where the John Lennon Memorial is, thinking, 'How do I open up this book? How do I get into the story?' One of the buskers was playing a John Lennon tune and I thought to myself, 'What would I do if the person playing that tune was my missing daughter?'" Luckily for Coben, Charlotte is far from missing and is actually the associate producer on Run Away. She also worked on the series as a writer, and has contributed to previous adaptations of her father’s books, Shelter, Stay Close and Fool Me Once.

Coben is very involved in the casting of his series – this is his 12th for Netflix – watching audition tapes and approving everybody.

"I would rather change the character to fit the actor than change the actor to fit the character," he says. At the front and centre of Run Away, written for the screen by frequent collaborator Danny Brocklehurst, is James Nesbitt, no stranger to the Coben-verse, having also appeared in Stay Close and Missing You.

"He gives off good 'distressed dad' vibes," says Coben.

In Run Away, Nesbitt plays wealth manager Simon Greene, who shares two daughters and a son with his wife, paediatrician Ingrid (Minnie Driver). When daughter Paige (Ellie de Lange) goes missing, Ingrid thinks she’ll come home when she’s ready, but Simon won’t stop looking, blaming her drug-dealer boyfriend for getting her hooked on drugs. Then one day he sees her in a park, singing and strumming away on a guitar…

RT visited the Run Away set in Dukinfield, Greater Manchester, where between takes Nesbitt said, "I’m the worst on-screen parent and the worst on-screen cop ever. Of all the cops I’ve played, usually someone dies, and in three of the parent roles, my children have gone missing. I just wouldn’t cast me!"

Meanwhile, Coben promises that "Run Away is not just my most surprising ending, but my most emotionally devastating ending." For someone who has made his mark as the king of suspenseful stories, that’s saying something…

James Nesbitt plays Simon Greene

"It’s very easy to tap into the reality of the situation that Simon finds himself in — the utter drive and determination to bring his daughter back, the despair and the guilt he feels that he drove her away. He can also be explosively violent at times. As a parent, it makes that easier, because you can obviously locate your feelings about your own children and if something similar was happening to them. It makes you appreciate your own life.

"As time has passed in my career, it’s been automatic that I would be offered parts as a parent, but in terms of the darkness and why they go for me, I don’t know. I had an idyllic childhood, I can’t understand why they see this potential in me!

"I started in comedy and I was lucky that I had an instinct for it. I loved doing Jekyll, because although it was very dark, Steven Moffat’s writing was so funny — the comedy was irreverent and shocking, and that’s the sort of thing I miss doing. I think it’s harder to find good comedy roles and probably harder to write comedy than serious drama. I wouldn’t mind doing a romcom, but at 60, I’m not sure anyone wants that.

"I’d also quite like to play a baddie for Harlan — perhaps in a thriller set in Ireland. The landscape would suit it — it can be very beautiful in the north, but it can also be quite foreboding."

Minnie Driver plays Ingrid Greene

"The insidiousness of addiction is that it doesn’t matter what kind of a home you come from. Paige’s family have offered the most they could, yet still this beautiful kid is lost down the tunnel of this disease. I’ve come across so many friends who have dealt with addiction themselves, or their family members have. I’ve had boyfriends who suffered from addiction.

"I’ve gone to so many Alcoholics Anonymous meetings with friends. I wanted to understand what they were going through, and those meetings are full of love, hope and support. You really realise how necessary that programme is for so many people.

"There are so many things we don’t talk about, because we’re frightened of acknowledging that dark things exist in our world, and particularly with social media, where everything is about the presentation of a perfect life. As parents, we would go to any extreme for our kids, and that is a theme of the show."

Ruth Jones plays private investigator Elena Ravenscroft

"So many people are Harlan Coben fans, like my auntie Lynne, who’s 84, and so excited I’m in this. I love a thriller, but I find violence hard to watch. So I have to say to myself, 'That is all staged.' I find emotional violence even more difficult to watch, like psychological bullying.

"Elena doesn’t look like you’d perhaps expect a private investigator to look. The glasses were my choice — I wanted to make sure she was different from characters I’d played before. In the past Elena was a firearms officer, and when I was doing the flashback scene, inwardly I was thinking, 'It’s so ridiculous that Ruth Jones is playing the part of a firearms officer.' But I have to be 100 per cent committed to what I’m doing, otherwise there’s that tendency to make a little joke. There were opportunities for Elena to be lighter in the scenes with Simon [James Nesbitt], and I loved those moments. With both comedy and drama, it just has to be believable. If you get comedy wrong, you can tell when it hasn’t landed.

"Harlan is the master of complex secrets. I couldn’t do what he does, but there are secrets in my novels, because they’re interesting to read about.

"I don’t write my books thinking of them as TV adaptations. There is a possibility for one of them, but it’s very early days."

Alfred Enoch plays detective Isaac Fagbenle

"Maybe I’m judging him too harshly, but I’m not sure Isaac is a great detective. He has a hunch and a single-mindedness; he’s too zoomed in. The other characters imply that Isaac’s very attractive — I’m just going to have to trust that the audience will be willing to go with that!

"I was thinking, 'That’s sort of pressure.' I showed up to the read-through all unkempt and unshaved, like I’d been in the woods for two months. But I did find it gratifying that it was a male character [as opposed to a female character] getting objectified.

"My dad [William Russell, who played Ian Chesterton, one of Doctor Who’s very first companions] was my teacher. I would watch films he’d been in, and as a kid go and see him on stage. I was like, 'This is what I want to do,' and he nurtured that. Fans usually approach me for How to Get Away with Murder — a twisty-turny thriller in the same vein as Run Away — and Harry Potter. I didn’t have much to do in Potter, but there’s such a fandom around it and people associate me with a character they’ve read, because so much was cut in the films."

Read more:

• Harlan Coben reveals which British acting legend he wants to work with again on a Netflix adaptation
• Harlan Coben's new Netflix thriller starring Gavin & Stacey icon releases chilling first look trailer

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