Nos vies en l’air (A Night to Live) writer Margaux Bonhomme discusses the challenging themes and format at the heart of this French coming-of-age drama, which centres on two desperate teens who find solace in strangers as they face a decision between life and death.
Australian screenwriter Elise McCredie reveals how she manages multiple projects, from topical dramas like Stateless to airport-set development project The Chaplain, and discusses her passion for telling bold, character-driven stories that explore the depths of humanity.
FIRST LOOK: David Harewood stars alongside Michele Austin and Jason Flemyng in Pierre, a Channel 4 legal drama now filming in West London.
Jesse Armstrong trades media moguls for tech titans in Mountainhead. The Succession creator tells DQ about this timely, dystopian feature-length drama, reuniting with some familiar faces and directing his first major project. Award-winning film and television writer Jesse Armstrong is best known as the man behind HBO’s hugely acclaimed darkly satirical drama Succession, while he also wrote The Entire History of You, one of the standout episodes of dystopian anthology series Black Mirror. Now, with Mountainhead, the influence of both projects can be found in this story of four tech billionaires postulating about taking over the world while civil unrest spreads across the globe thanks to the rampant rise of AI-generated videos. Written by Armstrong, the HBO film also marks his first major directing credit. It opens as Randall (Steve Carrell), Venis (Cory Michael Smith) and Jeff (Ramy Youssef) gather at a mountain retreat belonging to Hugo, aka Souper (Jason Schwartzman). But as the ‘Brewsters’ reunite for a boys weekend, they can’t take their eyes off their phones. That’s because they’re sharing constant updates from social media while countries around the world become engulfed by political turmoil, panic buying, stock market crashes and outbreaks of violence – events attributed to new “content tools” released by Venis’s own platform, Traam, that have been used to spread misinformation through generative AI and deepfake videos. As it happens, Jeff has developed software that can identify AI-generated content – but will he sell his “filter for nightmares” to Venis? A blend of satirical comedy … Continue reading Peak TV
As Natasha Lyonne’s human lie detector Charlie returns to solve more mysteries in season two of Poker Face, creator and director Rian Johnson reflects on the success of the ‘how catch ’em’ series and discusses working with many versions of Cynthia Erivo.
On Call executive producers Tim Walsh and Elliot Wolf take DQ inside the making of this Prime Video crime procedural, which uses bodycam-style footage to put viewers in the centre of a story about the daily challenges faced by Long Beach police officers.
Ghosts star Charlotte Ritchie tells DQ about playing a detective for the first time in ITV drama Code of Silence, why leaving Ghosts was “a big loss” and the lessons she learned making Netflix thriller You.
Jo Joyner, Shelley Conn and Emily Taaffe reflect on the moral dilemma at the heart of Paramount+ emotional thriller Little Disasters and discuss how they came together to create the drama’s central characters, whose friendships are torn apart by secrets and revelations.
TRAILER: HBO is entering the world of Stephen King with IT: Welcome to Derry, a series based on the author’s novel IT that is due to air this autumn.
TRAILER: Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri and Ebon Moss-Bachrach are reopening The Bear for season four, as the series returns to Hulu in the US on June 25 and Disney+ on June 26.
Director Simon Hynd, costume designer Hayley Nebauer and hair and make-up designer James Spinks tell DQ about the “unique” prospect of making BBC comedy-drama Death Valley, which centres on an unlikely crime-solving partnership who must unravel a series of bizarre murders.
Director Jonas Geirnaert reflects on blending emotion and humour for road trip drama How to Kill Your Sister, stepping behind the camera and the fresh perspective of Belgian storytelling that brings a surreal or absurd twist to contemporary storytelling.
Rose-Ayling Ellis takes her first leading role in Code of Silence, an ITV drama about a deaf woman who is thrown into a world of crime. She joins creator Catherine Moulton to detail their mission to blend an authentic representation of the deaf experience with a high-stakes thriller.
FIRST LOOK: Niamh Algar and Tom Hollander play a deadly game of hide and seek in The Iris Affair, a chase thriller set across Italy that will debut on Sky and streamer NOW later this year. Written, created and showrun by Neil Cross (Luther), the series pits two brilliant minds against each other. When enigmatic genius Iris Nixon (Algar) cracks a string of complex online puzzles, she’s led to a piazza in Florence where she meets charismatic entrepreneur Cameron Beck (Hollander). He invites her to come and work for him to unlock a powerful and top-secret piece of technology. Her curiosity piqued, she accepts. But when Iris discovers its dangerous potential, she steals the journal containing the device’s activation sequence – and vanishes. This leads to a relentless pursuit, from a remote cabin in Sardinia through the bustling streets of Rome, as Cameron races to find Iris in a high-stakes game where trust is dangerous and failure could be catastrophic. The cast also includes Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones), Harry Lloyd (Arcane), Meréana Tomlinson (The Trials), Sacha Dhawan (The Great), Maya Sansa (Good Morning, Night), Peter Sullivan (Poldark), Debi Mazar (Younger), Marco Leonardi (Nuovo Cinema Paradiso,), Angela Bruce (Silver Haze) and Lorenzo De Moor (A Simple Favor 2). The eight-part series is directed by Terry McDonough (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul) and Sarah O’Gorman (A Gentleman in Moscow, The Witcher). The Iris Affair is a Sky Studios and Fremantle coproduction. Wildside provided production services in Italy. The series executive producer … Continue reading Sky starts The Iris Affair
Novelist-turned-screenwriter Jonathan Lee details how years of research led him to write The Bombing of Pan Am 103, a BBC drama exploring the investigation into and response to the Lockerbie disaster in 1988.
FIRST LOOK: Jing Lusi and Martin Compston are teaming up for season two of ITV thriller Red Eye, which is currently in production.
FIRST LOOK: Megan Stalter and Will Sharpe star in Too Much, a comedy from writer-director Lena Dunham launching on Netflix on July 10.
Dood Spoor (Dead End) creator, writer and director Malin-Sarah Gozin helps DQ digest this unique Flemish crime series, in which a man with a unique gift – he can see the last moments of anything he puts in his mouth – joins the police hunt for a serial killer.
FIRST LOOK: Comedian Rosie Jones stars in her first ever sitcom, Pushers, about a young woman who builds an illegal drugs empire after her state benefits are cut. It is due to launch on Channel 4 in the UK in June.
Norwegian series Ølhunden Berit (A Better Man) follows a misogynist online troll who is outed by hackers and forced to live as a woman to avoid public shaming. Creator Thomas Seeberg Torjussen and stars Anders Baasmo Christiansen and Ingrid Unnur Giæver unpack this provocative tale of transformation.
