Entertainment
Harlan Coben Shares Update on Best-Selling Thriller Adaptation Series With David E. Kelley
This interview contains spoilers for I Will Find You.
Summary
Harlan Coben is a force in the mystery-thriller genre, with over 30 novels and a dozen adaptations to his name. His most beloved stories range from the Myron Bolitar series, about a retired basketball player and sports agent, to more contained plots like Stay Close, about three vastly different people connected by a traumatic event, and Tell No One, following a doctor grieving his wife who learns she might actually still be alive. Robert Hull is equally prolific, having written on everything from the soapy teen drama Gossip Girl to fantasy phenomenon Once Upon a Time to superhero crime drama Gotham.
The two prove to be the perfect pair to bring Coben’s latest show, I Will Find You, to life. The series follows a man named David Burroughs (Sam Worthington), who has been convicted of killing his young son, Matthew. When Rachel (Britt Lower), David’s sister-in-law, visits him in prison to show him a photograph of a child who looks exactly like Matthew, however, things unravel into a thrilling quest for the truth full of tense action, wild twists, and shocking conspiracies.
Collider got the chance to speak to Coben and Hull about the series. During the conversation, they discussed the importance of filming on location, how they brought the top-tier cast together, and the most important moments they knew they had to get right. Coben also gives an exciting update on his Myron Bolitar adaptation with David E. Kelley and reveals whether he’d ever be interested in directing.
Harlan Coben and ‘I Will Find You’ Showrunner Robert Hull Talk the Show’s Real Locations and A-List Cast
“I think the greatest challenge…is also the show’s greatest strength.”
COLLIDER: Something that really struck me about this show was all of its settings. If I did my research correctly, I believe you actually filmed on location a lot in former prisons, in Times Square. I’m curious if you can talk about the particular challenges and joys of stepping outside of the soundstage to actually go to some of these places.
ROBERT HULL: I think the greatest challenge — which you just said — is also the show’s greatest strength, which is that we are out and about in the real world almost all the time. We didn’t build. [We used] real locations, real houses, real prisons, real rooftops, because even with visual effects these days, there’s nothing that can substitute putting an incredible actor in a real location and letting them do their thing there and not to have a greenscreen, not to have a fake. Everything is real, and it gives the show this heightened storyline — it gives us everything a grounded feel. It’s a real, true, classic thriller, because you can feel the authenticity.
I love that you mentioned the rooftop scene, because that was very suspenseful to watch, and I’m sure the stunt was interesting to do as well. Another thing that really stood out to me was this cast and how perfectly everyone felt in their roles, from Britt and Sam to Milo and Madeleine. What was the most difficult role for you to find in the cast? I feel like everyone fits so perfectly that there must have been a lot of work to find them.
HARLAN COBEN: I would like to credit us for a lot of this sort of thing, but these actors kind of found us. We found Sam very early on, and that was the key and the linchpin. He does so much with so little. He brings such gravitas to the role. Oftentimes, we would say, “Let’s not even write him a line. Let’s just get a close-up of Sam’s face,” because it conveys so much.
And then we heard Britt Lower wanted to work with us on this particular series, and we knew that now it’s a two-hander, right? You can’t just have Britt be sort of on the side. Milo I think came to us with Hayden, which was really nice. Milo’s such a lovely guy, such a lovely person, and you love him from the moment you see him onstage. It became more that our challenge was that we have so many great actors; how do we give them all we want to give them? How do we give Madeleine Stowe — a legend — the moment she deserves?
And then Chi. We said we wanted a Chi McBride type, and we ended up with Chi McBride. We wanted a Madeleine Stowe type, and we ended up with Madeleine Stowe. It was that way all the way down the line. It was sort of an embarrassment of riches.
HULL: I think it’s a testament to the power of Harlan’s storytelling, because all these actors… Milo is a perfect example of someone who normally wouldn’t be number three on the call sheet, but you present this type of material, and a good actor doesn’t care. They just want that juicy role. They just want to come, perform, and bring it to life. I think it’s a testament to his story.
Harlan Coben and Robert Hull Discuss ‘I Will Find You’s Wildest Twists
“Every red herring actually is a story in and of itself.”
I feel like it wouldn’t be a true Harlan Coben show without cliffhangers and plot twists. What was the most difficult one to pull off in the writing process?
COBEN: That’s a good question. Boy, there’s a couple. I think the episode where you see Matthew at the very, very end of an episode, it’s great. I thought the one where we saw Adam digging a hole, digging into a grave, was a solid one. I think Sam leaving, getting out of prison, putting the gun against the warden’s head is a pretty good one.
HULL: I would also say, with cliffhangers, I’m a big believer that it’s really easy to do a cliffhanger to keep you watching — it’s the B side, it’s the answer [that’s hard]. If you just do a cliffhanger and then get them out of it, nobody cares. And so Harlan and I spent a lot of time not just on the cliffhanger, but on what the next part was. What’s the next beat in the story? That’s where people will be locked in, because you satisfy them. There’s no bait-and-switch there. Every red herring actually is a story in and of itself.
Harlan Coben Gives an Update on His Myron Bolitar Series and Reveals Whether Directing Is in His Future
“Pressure is a privilege.”
Harlan, last month, it was announced that Netflix had greenlit the Myron Bolitar series, which people are super excited for. What can you tell us about working with David E. Kelley on that and where you are in that process?
COBEN: We’re pretty close to starting to film. We’ll be making announcements I think fairly soon. I grew up with David E. Kelley in a sense. I’ve been admiring his work for so long, and when they first told me, “How about you and David E. Kelley trying to do this?” I was just like, “Let me in.” I’m nervous about it. I’ve written a lot of books about Myron, and Win, and Esperanza, and I really want it to go well. Pressure is a privilege, and we’ll see how it goes now. I always get nervous before a show — I got nervous before this one — and now, it’s gonna be out in the whole world, and it’s time to see if we were right or not.
I have full faith in you. I feel like you have become as synonymous with TV as you are with books now. You’ve been doing a lot of writing and producing — would you ever have any interest in trying to direct or do anything else in the TV sphere?
COBEN: I never say never anymore, because I keep saying never, and I end up doing it. “I would never write a memoir,” and I just wrote that. “I would never write a play,” and I just wrote one. So I never say never. I can’t imagine being a director unless I had a really great DP, maybe. [Laughs] I don’t see it happening, but who knows?
HULL: I would encourage him to do anything but write television, because then my job is gone.
COBEN: Robbie’s trying to picture me as a director on set, and I’m annoying enough now.
HULL: [Laughs] That’s fine, that’s fine. Most of my calls to Harlan are, “Write your novels faster, because I’m here waiting. Please write faster.”
Robert, your resume has such a wide range of projects. Gossip Girl, Once Upon a Time, Alcatraz, Gotham. Which of those shows do you feel best prepared you to work on this series?
HULL: All of them. Honestly, especially when you’re adapting Harlan, who has such a track record for success, it’s really about the storytelling. It’s really about honoring both his initial story, but also the way he tells stories, which is, yes, thrillers, yes, twists and turns, but if you read and are a fan of his novels, you read them because, at the end, there’s always this emotion. There’s always this sense of hope, this sense of catharsis. And that’s why I think he’s so successful. I think the twists and turns are how he keeps you turning the pages, but at the very end, if it’s not satisfying on an emotional level, you’re not gonna read the next one.
Harlan Coben Knew They Had To Get This ‘I Will Find You’ Scene Perfect
“[It’s] the moment that I think that I knew the show was going to work.”
I’m so curious, is there one moment in the show that you can point to as being something that you’re proudest of or something that you’re most excited for people to get to see?
COBEN: I’ll pick two and go from Episode 1 to Episode 8. Episode 1, and this is the moment that I think that I knew the show was going to work, is the scene where Britt Lower shows Sam Worthington the photograph in the prison. It was the scene when I was writing the book that I kept thinking about, and I don’t know how many times Robbie and I talked about this beforehand, but I was so nervous about making sure it worked, and we had the right camera angle, we had the right photograph, and all that. I probably drove him crazy with that. So that’s one.
And I don’t want to give anything away, but the last scene in Episode 8. For people who haven’t watched it yet, I hope you will. That scene, to me, gets me choked up even talking about it. So those are my two favorites, picking from 1 and 8. Robbie, you gotta pick something in the middle now.
HULL: [Laughs] I don’t want to pick anything in the middle! I think Harlan nailed it, though, because the end is sort of left open to interpretation of what a happy ending is, and where they go from here. And I think that sense of asking where they go from here is a real testament to the story that Harlan wrote, because you want to keep watching. You want to figure out what happens after that, and I think that leaves people feeling very satisfied.
I Will Find You is now streaming on Netflix.
- Release Date
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June 18, 2026
- Network
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Netflix
- Showrunner
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Robert Hull
- Directors
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Adam Davidson, Maggie Kiley, Maja Vrvilo, Brad Anderson
- Writers
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Robert Hull, Harlan Coben
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