Bringing a book to the small screen is no easy task. You have to of course tell the story being told within the pages of the book you’re adapting. But you also have to capture the spirit of the book, the relationships within it, and make sure you cast people that embody the characters you’re working with. That’s what Lucky showrunner Jonathan Tropper had to do.
Based on the thriller of the same name by Marissa Stapley, Lucky is the story of a heist gone wrong. Starring Anya Taylor-Joy, it tells the story of a young woman who left behind the life of crime she was raised in years ago. But now, she has to embrace her darker side one final time in a desperate attempt to escape her past.
Fangirlish sat down with Lucky showrunner Jonathan Tropper to talk about what it took to bring Lucky to life for Apple TV. And right off the bat, he wanted us to know that the most important thing to him was bringing to life the father-daughter relationship between Lucky and her father John, played by Timothy Olyphant.
MORE: The Gorge Review: If Annihilation Had a Rom-Com Baby with Banter
“The thing that really drew me to the project was this really complicated father-daughter relationship,” said Tropper, “We built a thriller engine around it that’s a bit different from what’s in the book. But what we stayed really true to is this girl who’s been raised her whole life to see the world a certain way by a con artist father.”
In the book, John basically raised Lucky on the road. He taught her how to scam and steal. And eventually that caught up to him, leading to him going to prison. “Her father has a broken soul and he’s taught her to view, he’s bequeathed her a very broken view of the world.”
Lucky’s outlook on life is a huge part of the journey that she’s going to go through on screen. Because yes, it’s what helped her survive. But it’s also what’s led her to the situation she’s trying to escape on the show. “Part of the journey of Lucky is her individuating from her father and recognizing that she has cut herself off from a huge part of the world by seeing the world the way he sees it and trying to get away from that.”
MORE: Interview: Alice Englert & Solly McLeod Preview ‘No Personal Freedom’ in Star City Season 1
Then there’s Taylor-Joy herself. She’s an immensely talented actress that has done everything from action-packed movies like Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga to animated movies like the Super Mario films. Now she’s looking ahead to Dune: Part Three. But right now on Lucky, she’s the perfect actress to bring this young woman to life.
For Tropper, Taylor-Joy conveys everything that is needed for Lucky. “This is a show about a brilliant young woman. This is a show about somebody who’s always the smartest person in the room. And when you spend time with Anya, I mean, she’s fiercely intelligent and thoughtful,” Tropper shared before continuing, because she really is such a brilliant actress.
“I think when you have her in this role, you really believe that this character is the smartest person in the room. Because Anya just conveys intelligence in a way, you know, there’s a lot of other things she does. She’s a wonderful actress. Her conveying that intelligence is vital to the role because you have to believe Lucky is brilliant.”
MORE: How Connor Storrie’s Criminal Minds: Evolution Guest Star Showcases His Range
While we were talking to Tropper, we also wanted to look back at his career. Because as a showrunner, and writer alongside Cassie Pappas, you do face new challenges with every show you take on. And we wanted to know how this show differs from his other Apple TV show Your Friends & Neighbors and even the iconic 2013 series Banshee starring Anthony Starr.
For Tropper, it’s all about what the show is celebrating or acting as an extension of. And that helps him understand the challenges ahead but also how he tackles the show. “Banshee is really a celebration of the action genre. And so you go into that show, knowing that almost every episode, you’re going to do action set pieces. Lucky is more a character driven drama.”
That doesn’t mean there isn’t action in the Taylor-Joy series. There is. But it’s earned. “The action is an extension of what the characters are going through. Whereas with Banshee, we had to plan our narrative to make sure that there was action because, you know, Banshee was really built for action.”
Then there’s Your Friends & Neighbors. That show doesn’t have the same action as Banshee. But it does delve into the character driven work like this new series. “There’s not a ton of action in Your Friends & Neighbors, but when it comes, it’s really been earned by the characters and the action is there to tell a character story. And so I think Lucky and Your Friends & Neighbors have that in common, whereas, you know Banshee was really created to celebrate action.”
In a lot of ways, this new Apple TV series feels like an amalgamation of everything that Jonathan Tropper has learned and helped bring to life in Hollywood. And we can’t wait to see how our heroine gets out of the mess she’s found herself in.
Lucky releases new episodes of every Wednesday on Apple TV.
