LOS ANGELES – To play a woman on the run in the 18th century adventure series “Renegade Nell,” Louisa Harland had to learn how to ride a horse, shoot a gun and fight.
“It has every element under the sun,” the Irish actress says. “There’s comedy, adventure, fantasy, magic and, surprisingly, it’s moving at times.”
To pull it off, she was in stunt training throughout the shoot, working with trainers in every discipline. “There was so much to learn and it was so incredibly physical,” the former “Derry Girls” star says.
“She’s like the female Tom Cruise,” says co-star Joely Richardson. “She can do every stunt.”
“Ted Lasso” star Nick Mohammed, who plays Nell’s adviser Billy Blind, had his own shot at action. “It’s always been a dream of mine to do (stunt work on wires),” he says. “I was really excited about it and kind of went for it on the first day. And then, in the car on the way home, I was just sick. I threw up.”
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Nonetheless, the illusion worked, helping create a world where Nell Jackson has been framed for murder and becomes the most feared highwaywoman in 18th-century England. She tussles with a variety of characters and shows how much of a shapeshifter she really is. “Every member of the family will connect with this,” Harland says. “It’s really, really refreshing to see such strong, funny, flawed women portrayed onscreen.”
Written by “Happy Valley’s” Sally Anne Wainwright, the series views women differently than most historical dramas.
“I didn’t know parts like this existed for women,” Harland says. “And everything about the character was a challenge for me.”
On that list of challenges: a Cockney accent. “I’m not English and I can’t even ride a bike, let alone a horse. I could definitely not throw a punch. I have all these incredible skills now that will stay with me…hopefully.”
Co-star Alice Kremelberg, who plays Sofia Wilmot, an ambitious widow, shared a similar learning curve. “I’m from New York…and I had to learn to ride sidesaddle. All of that was a crazy, huge checklist of items. It’s so unlike anything I’ve ever read or seen before.”
For Mohammed, it was career-altering. “Sally Wainwright is a genius,” he says. “The last thing I saw of Sally’s before doing ‘Renegade Nell’ was the final season of ‘Happy Valley,’ which is incredibly dark and serious and gritty. Thematically, it’s sort of linked to ‘Nell.’ It’s about injustice and, to a degree, class warfare.”
That he’s a supernatural character only added to the stretch. “It was a world away from ‘Ted Lasso,’” Mohammed says. “And to be honest, it was a world away from anything else I’d ever done.”
For director Ben Taylor, “Nell’s” TV home – Disney+ — brought its own challenges. “You come in and say, ‘I want it to be the darkest, the scariest, the most violent version of anything you’ve ever seen.’ But we knew that we were doing it for this platform, so we pushed.”
The result was a story that immediately sets up the stakes for Nell.
“We found a really happy balance,” Taylor says. “We got a really fantastic fight designer (who made it) as spectacular and violent as possible but with humor and improvisation. We knew we’d go in for this sort of hard-ish 12 rating, but it was a real puzzle to sort of unpick.”
Instead of sex – which was key to his last series, “Sex Education” – Taylor turned to superpowers. “You can imagine a world where that isn’t the addition, but it’s such an excellent addition,” he says. “It’s what makes it sort of the Disney fantasy DNA. Sally writes brilliant real heroes but the idea that she chose to do that with a supernatural element makes it just irresistible.”
“Renegade Nell” airs on Disney+.