A London audience was treated to a first tease of Run Away, a new series adaptation of a Harlan Coben thriller novel starring James Nesbitt, Ruth Jones, Minnie Driver and Alfred Enoch, on Monday.
The first episode of the show, which will debut on Netflix on Jan. 1, following the 2025 success of the limited thriller series Missing You, screened at the BFI Southbank in the British capital Monday night, followed by a Q&A with Jones, Nesbitt, Coben and lead writer and executive producer Danny Brocklehurst.
“After his eldest daughter, Paige, runs away from home, angst-ridden Simon is determined to reunite the family,” reads a synopsis. The series uses the tagline: “How far would you go to bring her back?” Run Away is one of 13 titles from best-selling author Coben produced for Netflix. It will feature eight hourlong episodes. In keeping with previous Coben adaptations, Run Away is relocating the story of the novel from the U.S. to the U.K. Filming took place in and around Manchester and the North West of England.
Asked about that setting, Brocklehurst quipped he liked to shoot “near my house.”
Coben said Monday that the show is about “the emotional journey that the parents are going through with a child who’s suffering from addiction,” in addition to a mystery that his fans have come to enjoy.
The idea all started with a worry he had about his daughter Charlotte, who has an associate producer credit on Run Away. “I found some drug paraphernalia in her room when she was a teenager. But she swears it was a friend’s pipe,” he recalled. “And of course, my mind spiraled, which is what it does.” When he couldn’t think of how to start off the addiction story that this inspired, he was sitting in Central Park one day at Strawberry Fields. “A busker was miming a John Lennon tune. ‘And I thought, What if that’s the missing daughter,’” and he figured out the rest of the story from there.
Nesbitt and Jones on Monday lauded the collaborative approach and atmosphere on the production. Coben series veteran Nesbitt praised the author for making his stories about people and the challenges they face, offering: “We talk about the universality of Harlan’s work, but I think there’s a timelessness to it as well.”
Nesbitt has played cops in Coben stories before, but in Run Away, it is different. “This is a character who’s a father,” he shared. “I am a father, of girls. It’s something that unquestionably you tap into.”
Jones shared that she was nervous about getting to play opposite Nesbitt. “I was a little trepidatious about it because I have always been a big admirer of his work. He’s a brilliant actor, and I was feeling slightly fraudulent,” she shared. “I was thinking, ‘God, am I going to be able to act with him?’ And then we did this scene together. … I was really nervous, but instantly we just seemed to click.” Nesbitt agreed.
With Nesbitt’s character Simon married to Ingrid, played by Driver, Jones emphasized about her character Elena’s interactions with Simon: “It’s a really lovely onscreen relationship because, well, spoiler alert, it’s not a romance, alright?”
She drew laughter when she added: “That’s quite refreshing. It’s refreshing to see that male-female friendship.”
The actress also shared: “You can be friends with someone for a reason, a season or a lifetime. And I think that they come together for this one reason, and they empathize with one another, and they sympathize.”
Jones gave a shoutout to the costume designer’s choices for Elena, which are more unusual than fashionable, saying; “I quite like the fact that they belie [her character and determination], and I love the courage of how she dressed. It was quite out there, really.”
Run Away is produced by Quay Street Productions, part of ITV Studios. Coben serves as executive producer through his company, Final Twist Productions. Quay Street Productions’ Nicola Shindler and Richard Fee are also executive producers.
Other cast members include Lucian Msamati, Jon Pointing, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Annette Badland, Maeve Courtier-Lilley, Ellie de Lange, Adrian Greensmith, Ellie Henry, Ingrid Oliver, Finty Williams, Joe McGann and Amy Gledhill.
