News Beat
Harlan Coben’s Run Away drops on Netflix TODAY
New Year’s Day can only mean one thing on TV,.. Harlan Coben’s latest thriller has lands today.
Adapted by the author from his own novel, Run Away is an eight-part thriller about the trauma and secrets that bind a family but can also tear them apart.
Filming took place across the North West, including Heaton Park and Saddleworth Moors and Liverpool.
For Harlan Coben fans, New Year’s Day has become synonymous with the release of a new Netflix adaptation of one of the American author’s thrillers.
Last year saw the release of Missing You, starring Rosalind Eleazar and Lenny Henry, while 2024 brought Fool Me Once, featuring Michelle Keegan and Joanna Lumley.
This New Year will see the release of Run Away, starring Gavin & Stacey actress Ruth Jones and Cold Feet actor James Nesbitt.
The eight-part series follows Jones, 59, as Elena Ravenscroft, an investigator who helps Simon Greene, played by Nesbitt, after his daughter Paige, played by Ellie de Lange, runs away from home.
The thriller, Coben’s 13th adaptation, also stars Good Will Hunting actress Minnie Driver, Sweetpea star Jon Pointing, and Harry Potter actor Alfred Enoch. Conclave star Lucian Msamati appears alongside Ted Lasso’s Annette Badland and Friday Night Dinner actress Tracy-Ann Oberman.
Jones admits she wasn’t familiar with Coben’s work before being cast in Run Away, but quickly became an overnight fan.
“I wasn’t really particularly familiar with Harlan Coben’s work, if I’m absolutely honest,” she explains. “But now I’ve become an overnight fan, I just loved the script. The character was so different for me to play, and I was totally intrigued by the story and where it was going.”
Jones, who co-created the hit sitcom Gavin & Stacey with James Corden, says the series allowed her to try many new things. Her character, Elena, is a former firearms officer, which gave her the opportunity to film scenes using firearms.
“I had to do some scenes as a firearms officer in a flashback, which partly made me quite hysterical,” says Jones.
“I love that people have the imagination, casting directors and producers like Nicola Shindler, to think, ‘She doesn’t just do the slightly goth, tattooed, leather-skirt-wearing Barry girl who works in an arcade. She can do something else.’
“When you’re presented with a challenge like that, of course you want to rise to it and make the most of it. I think this is the first time I’ll be on screen playing someone so different from Nessa, and I’m really excited about it.”
Nesbitt, 60, describes his character’s life as “perfect” until his daughter runs away.
“A year prior to the events of the series, Simon was a very successful wealth manager, happily married to Ingrid, played by Minnie Driver, who works in paediatrics,” explains the Northern Irish actor. “They had an idyllic family setup, with two daughters and a son.
“But everything is shattered when his daughter becomes involved with Aaron Corval and disappears into a world of drugs. It’s an idyllic life, built up over time, that suddenly falls apart in a heartbeat. As a father, it destroys him. He spends his life asking, ‘Where is she? What can I do?’ and tries everything to bring her back. That journey takes him down dark, varied, and often harsh paths.”
Nesbitt, who is a father to two daughters, says he found the role particularly moving.
“I know that on screen, I often have cried more than Charles Ingalls in Little House On The Prairie, but I found this remarkably moving,” he says. “I find it very moving to play these roles, because I am a father and can, in a sense, put myself into the situation or imagine what the loss is like.
“It’s hard enough when your daughters go to university. It’s hard enough having to leave them to go to work when they were younger, which I had to do a lot of the time. You know, it’s hard to watch them grow up, it’s hard to watch them move away. But the glue is still love – the glue that lets you protect them, look after them, know where they are, and be there when they need you.
“What this does is take all of that away, leaving a real, empty, awful, vulnerable, powerless shell, where you’re left thinking, ‘What can I do? Where is she?’”
Despite both being in the business for decades, Jones and Nesbitt had never worked together before Run Away.
“I’ve always had a lifelong ambition to work with Jimmy Nesbitt. I would have done anything, pantomime, whatever it was,” laughs Jones. “I loved working with him. He is so professional and so talented. We did lose it a bit when we were in the ‘drug den.’ There’s often no explanation for what can make you laugh in a scene; the smallest, most insignificant thing can just set you off.”
Nesbitt says he was surprised that Jones was nervous working with him at the start.
“I recall our first scene together, which was in the car. I remember Ruth saying she was quite nervous about working with me. I said, ‘You’re Ruth b****y Jones!’ It was interesting. I think that’s a testament to Ruth, but also to the show and what it means to us.
“You don’t just phone these things in, and neither of us would want to. Working with the rest of the cast has been fantastic too. There’s a real sense of a combined will to do the best you can on this thing.
“I absolutely adored working with Ruth. She’s just a really good match and exciting to work with. At this later stage of one’s career, it’s wonderful to find that kind of new excitement in collaborating with someone.”
Run Away was written by Danny Brocklehurst, who has adapted several of Coben’s novels.
