I was fortunate enough to attend a preview screening of Neagley, the first spin-off of Prime Video’s brilliant Reacher, ahead of its release this week. It was a fantastic opening episode, which maintains the high standard set by the original show. It follows Frances Neagley (Maria Sten), a private investigator and former military protege of Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson), who learns that a friend from her past has been killed in a suspicious accident. Neagley quickly begins to investigate the case, putting herself on a dangerous path to uncover evil and giving us what looks to be a gripping story to follow.
As part of the event, Sten took part in a brief interview touching on numerous aspects of her experience playing the character. I thought the most interesting part was her reflections on the process of getting into character before going on set, telling us, “I journal as the character when I’m prepping, and I walk around on the street as my character. I have little trinkets of hers that I’ve put history and background to — attached stories to them, and what they mean to her. So I keep those with me in my trailer. That’s the emotional work. The physical work is just working out a lot — lifting weights, running, conditioning, jumping, all the things to make sure you can withstand all the insane stunt work we do on the show. It’s no walk in the park, I’ll just say that”. It’s an element of characterisation; it’s easy to not think about when watching someone’s performance, but it just helps to show why Neagley feels so well rounded compared to some other characters we see on television.
We also heard about her experience exploring a more in-depth side of Neagley that we haven’t seen before. Previously, we’ve only seen her as a secondary character to Reacher in the main show. This spin-off gives us an audience a chance to get to know her more, which in turn gave Sten the chance to reflect on how much her understanding of the character changed too.
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“I think what did change was understanding how profound her loneliness was — more than anything. I initially thought she’d chosen to be this way because she can control this, and that’s how she feels safe because of this trauma. But I think when we meet her in this show, she’s more isolated, and really not comfortable with her situation, but doesn’t know how to do anything about it. She’s kind of lying to herself. That’s an interesting starting place, and that’s what we’re exploring in the show.”
Before the interview wrapped up, Sten also touched on her character’s role within male-dominated environments, adding, “I don’t think Neagley cares who’s around, in terms of — I don’t think she’s threatened by men, intimidated by men, or looks up to men any more than her father. Her father is her greatest role model, but I think it’s about people who are worthy of respect and getting the job done. She doesn’t have a lot of patience for mediocrity or bullshit whatsoever. I think she feels very comfortable in that space, because she doesn’t have to talk about her emotions — she can use her body, and she can be of service in the military. In these male-dominated worlds, doing a job well is the point of it all. I don’t think she’s necessarily fazed by it.”
I thought it was fantastic to hear more about the character, and the actress’s thoughts about her process. From what we’ve seen of her character so far, Maria Sten truly embodies the character of Frances Neagley, something she revealed is a thought echoed by Lee Child, the original author of the franchise. It will be exciting to see what happens when the full season drops later this week!
All eight episodes of Neagley are on Amazon Prime Video from September 16th.
