Retired professor Harry Wild (Jane Seymour) decides to start a new career by investigating a murder case in “Harry Wild,” which begins streaming Monday, April 4, on Acorn TV.
A mugging points a retired literature professor toward a new career in a mystery thriller series that stars Jane Seymour and starts streaming Monday, April 4, on Acorn TV.
In “Harry Wild,” the Emmy-winning actress (“Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” “The Kominsky Method”) has the title role of Harry, a very independent woman with no filter who drinks, smokes and basically does whatever she pleases. She’s also never been married but has a son, Charlie (Kevin Ryan), who’s a police detective.
Roughed up in a mugging, she’s forced to temporarily move into his home with his wife and daughter, where she stumbles across his notes in a murder case. Noting its similarities to an Elizabethan play, she launches her own investigation. Along the way, she crosses paths with her mugger, teenage Fergus (Rohan Nedd), who she realizes is not such a bad kid and actually has skills she could use in working the case. So she takes him under her wing and they form an unlikely investigative team.
Filmed last summer in Dublin, the eight-episode series also stars Amy Huberman (“Finding Joy”) and Stuart Graham (“The Fall”) and counts among its executive producers Seymour, who fell in love with Harry’s fierce independence.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard of a character like this. …,” Seymour says. “It’s very comedic. Harry, of course, drinks too much wine, you know, hangs out at the pub, is quite belligerent. She’s got a mouth on her, she’ll tell it like it is, doesn’t care who it is. If she wants a man in her life, she’ll just take him, use him, have him and discard him as we normally see men do with women.
“And so she’s a very independent practitioner, but she’s also the sort of woman, I think, secretly some women would have loved to be able to be.”
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The role also brought out the trouper in Seymour. The 71-year-old actress spent most of filming on crutches with a shattered kneecap. But in the series, none of that is evident as Harry is seen climbing stairs, falling to the ground and running — all scenes that were handled by a stunt double.
“The stunt double was excellent because she didn’t do it like a young stunt girl,” Seymour explains. “She did it like I would, like Harry, so she watched how I would walk, how I would move. You know, how strong I would or wouldn’t be.
“The sign of a great stunt person is to actually know that they’re looking at the actor to see what their physicality is,” she continues, “because it would be absolutely pointless if suddenly Superwoman is doing it. It’s got to look like Harry.”
