HBO’s THE NEVERS Busts Barriers in Fantastical Ways, Say Stars Laura Donnelly and Ann Skelly

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede Part period piece, part sci-fi drama, part empowerment epic, there’s always something happening in HBO’s THE NEVERS. But at its core, THE NEVERS – which debuts Sunday, April 11 at 9 p.m. ET, only on Crave – is a story about how society treats people who are different. While modern audiences might be conditioned to believe that Victorian London – which provides an eerily picturesque setting – represents a particularly cruel era, an argument can be made that today’s world is just as harsh on those who don’t necessarily “fit in.” “I think you got it in a nutshell, there – I think it’s exactly that,” said Laura Donnelly, who plays main character Amalia True. “It’s a conversation about power, and equality, and oppression, people trying to make their voices heard, and an exploration of what it is to be the ‘other’ in society. One of the things that always leaps out to me about this series is that quote from (film executive and advocate) Franklin Leonard that says, ‘when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.’ It’s still what a lot of us who are very privileged in this day and age feel whenever we’re presented with difficult issues, but those are things that we need to have a conversation about, and move through.” THE NEVERS follows a group of marginalized people known as “The Touched” – mostly, but not exclusively, women – who have suddenly developed abnormal abilities or characteristics. Both feared and trivialized by the established order, “The Touched” face relentless enemies, but have two staunch defenders among their ranks: Donnelly’s Amalia True, a tough and mysterious widow who rarely turns down a drink; and brilliant inventor Penance Adair, played by Ann Skelly. “The friendship between me and Laura is very true, and that translates so much on screen, I hope,” Skelly said. “Laura is my favourite type of actor. Nothing feels unreal, even if we’re in front of the green screen, and, I don’t know, flying ponies smack us in the face. It’ll all feel real, because Laura is a very present person, and she’s completely genuine. Sometimes with actors, they switch, and all of a sudden it feels like you’re not even in the same room, which is hard to act with. But I trust wherever Laura is going to take the scene. She is very much my Amalia True. She’s my Sundance Kid. And I’d follow her into every dark alley there was.” “And there are many that I lead you into,” Donnelly confirmed. THE NEVERS is also notable in that it features strong female leads in the types of roles that traditionally would have been written for men, particularly in the sci-fi/fantasy realm. “It makes me incredibly proud, and also incredibly excited to be part of that,” Donnelly said. “I want to be involved in work that helps even up society a little, and at the same time, as an actress, I want to play roles that are complex, and are interesting to play, and as good as the male characters that are written in other shows. So it feels like a really unusual show to be part of, and a really unusual role to get to play as a woman. And all of that just means it’s the kind of work I’ve always wanted to do. We have a female showrunner (Philippa Goslett), female producers, female writers, so it’s going to be fascinating to see where it goes from here.” Skelly concurred with all that, and shared some childhood memories to illustrate the point. “When I was younger and wanting to be an actor, watching Back To The Future, or watching SCARFACE (available on STARZ) when I shouldn’t have been, there were always these men in these amazing parts,” Skelly recalled. “I wanted to play the Doctor in Back To The Future. I wanted the Al Pacino role in SCARFACE. I wanted to do all these terribly flawed and crazy characters. So I love Penance’s slight Back To The Future Doc vibe. I love getting to play a little eccentric person. And every character has their own incredible arc. Even if you see some of them only a little bit in the first episode, they all have their own journeys. Everyone’s a part of our amazing, I think, mad show.” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv