The career of the British actor Richard Armitage has undergone a development that has surprised many people over the past ten years. As the dwarven king Thorin Oakenshield, he was once part of the heroic main cast of the Hobbit trilogy, followed by an impressively monstrous transformation as the Red Dragon in the Hannibal series and the central role as a CIA agent in Berlin Station.
In 2017, Armitage (initially as a voice actor for the Castlevania cartoon) entered into business with Netflix and made the streaming service his main place of work – primarily in adaptations of Harlan Coben crime novels.
Richard Armitage and Harlan Coben: The Netflix dream team shares a love for thrillers
The last seven series entries in Richard Armitage’s filmography are Netflix projects. Two of them are animated series, four of them are Harlan Coben adaptations: I’ll Be Silent for You, Whoever Lies Once, In Eternal Guilt and most recently the thriller series I Miss You. But what is it about the best-selling author’s material that fascinates the actor with the deep voice so much that he remains so loyal to him?
Speaking to the Radio Times (via TV Guide) and Coben himself, Armitage said the following about the crime writer:
With what he does in his dramas, his books and adaptations, he has his finger on the pulse of something very current. I always say that Harlan’s hallmark is the fingerprints we leave on the technology we use.
Regarding his recent Coben-based Netflix series, Armitage went into a little more detail about his commitment to the Netflix formats:
What keeps me coming back is that I’m always very flattered and honored when I’m asked back. Then you read the first episode and say to yourself: ‘I can’t do that’. […] But also knowing that Netflix has created such a loyal fan base for Harlan Coben, he is almost his own cinematic universe. Richard Armitage is also now a thriller author
For Richard Armitage, Harlan Coben is not only a constant source of Netflix income, but also a personal friend. The actor revealed this much in an interview with STV News a few months ago when he presented his debut novel Geneva*. Because Armitage is now also a thriller author, with Coben as his own “unconscious mentor” He can also call if he gets stuck at a point in the story.
His own novel is about a Nobel Prize winner looking for a cure for Alzheimer’s who travels to Geneva for a conference and suddenly no longer knows who she can trust.
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