Rebecca Hall says her “beautiful and bold” new sci-fi series may not have been given the go-ahead by TV studios a decade ago.
The British actress stars alongside Jonathan Pryce in Amazon Prime Video’s Tales From The Loop, a visually stunning drama exploring love, loss and absence in small town America.
Based on the work of Swedish artist Simon Stalenhag and set in the fictitious Mercer, Ohio, it tells the story of a town living above “The Loop,” a machine built to unlock “the mysteries of the universe”.
The machine ensures events previously confined to the pages of sci-fi become reality in the town.
Hall said she was drawn to the show by how it used science to explore humanity.
She told the PA news agency: “The show takes as its premise that the ultimate problem of being a person is time. Because if it wasn’t for time then things wouldn’t change. If you’re happy, you’d stay happy.
“But also if you’re sad, you’d stay sad. You don’t grow up. You don’t become an adult. The good and bad of that. And ultimately you don’t die, if it wasn’t for time.
“Because of time we do beautiful things and because of time it’s a tragedy to be human and ultimately that’s what the show deals with. And I find that to be very beautiful and bold and not just fantastical science fiction with a cynical edge of, ‘isn’t this cool?’ But it’s rooted in something moving and human.”
Asked if she thought TV executives would have given the greenlight to a series which explored such heavy themes a decade ago, Bafta-winner Hall said: “I don’t, actually.
“I think up until fairly recently people tried to push TV into a palatable – what they think is palatable – straightforward, spelled out sort of realm.
“Things that are deemed art-house, that term has been a bit derogatory and now I think there’s a possibility for art-house to be more mainstream.
“And I think television is really fronting that movement and that’s really interesting and I think this is one of those categories.”
Tales From The Loop is streaming on Amazon Prime Video now.