Izuka Hoyle on Sky Show ‘Prisoner’ and Being Handcuffed to Tahar Rahim

Izuka Hoyle admittedly relished being handcuffed to co-star Tahar Rahim on Sky Original series Prisoner.

“He is, without a doubt, one of the greatest scene partners I’ve had the pleasure to work with,” the Scotswoman tells The Hollywood Reporter. “We instantly clicked and fell in love, so to speak.”

She’s gushing over her colleague ahead of the six-parter’s U.K. release on Thursday, but Prisoner creator Matt Charman is no doubt delighted with Hoyle’s portrayal of his impressively tenacious protagonist, Amber Todd. The series chronicles Amber’s return to work as a prison transport officer shortly after becoming a mother, but the first day on the job involves accompanying trained killer and high-value inmate Tibor Stone (Rahim) to court to testify against his elite crime syndicate.

When the syndicate’s lackeys set out to kill Stone before he can make it to court, the characters find themselves dodging bullets, swimming in open water, and eliminating threats — while handcuffed.

“I think what got me most excited was the handcuff business,” continues Hoyle about what attracted her to Prisoner. “It’s the concept of these two very different people handcuffed together, put through their paces, given the same objective, and how the story changes from a cat-and-mouse format to a psychological drama about what that does to two people, specifically Amber.”

She loved the physicality of the role and would have liked to have done even more — health and safety concerns required the involvement of stunt professionals (watched on by a jealous Hoyle). But the juiciness of Amber Todd was also all about her maternal instincts, her morality, and not being capable of some of the sociopathic acts of violence that an unfazed Tibor commits.

It’s another arrow in Hoyle’s quiver, whose first big role came in the original production of Six: the Musical, before her film journey began in 2018’s Mary Queen of Scots. From there, she’s accrued credits in genres like fantasy (The Wheel of Time), British sitcom (Big Boys), and cosy crime (Ludwig). Hoyle also boasts a friendship with one-shot mastermind Philip Barantini after appearing in his pre-Adolescence hit Boiling Point.

Below, she unpacks the grit and gusto of Prisoner, also starring Finn Bennett, Eddie Marsan and Laurie Davidson. She talks about building that on-screen chemistry with Rahim, why Amber might be considered an atypical lead and what Izuka Hoyle is keen to do next: “Something camp and wonderful, something really loud. I’d quite like to show off.”

Is Prisoner the kind of television that you like to watch — a high-speed thriller over the course of a day?

Yeah, I do. I do like to watch it. It takes me back to being young and watching 24 in the house with my mum and dad. Remember that? Remember The Bodyguard? We consume stuff at mass capacity these days. We’re so greedy. As viewers, we have such a huge appetite. But I think Prisoner is very much made for that. It’s got that format. It feeds the beast, but it’s tasteful as well. And Matt’s made it in such a classy way that I think it satisfies the taste buds. It doesn’t overpower you.

What got you most excited about playing Amber?

I think what got me most excited was the handcuff business. It’s the concept of these two very different people handcuffed together, put through their paces, given the same objective, and how the story changes from a cat-and-mouse format to a psychological drama about what that does to two people, specifically Amber. What I loved is that you’ve got this high-octane, high-action thriller, but then you have this woman at the center of it [who] represents a lot of softness and tenderness and the human aspect [of being] in a really inhumane world. You have that beautiful scene at the beginning of the whole show of her family in this cocoon that she’s been living in for the last six months [with her baby]. They’re breathing and their heartbeats are synced up, and it’s so soft and slow and human, and then she’s just catapulted into this chaos.

With Matt, it was fun to figure out how to make it as realistic as possible, so that when the audience views this, by default, through Amber’s eyes [and] experience it through her character — it helps them place themselves in the story. Because we can’t help but judge, right? When we watch this stuff, [we say], “I wouldn’t do that. She couldn’t do that. I would do this.” So we’re almost helping them, And then as we start to play around with questions of morality and put her in insane situations, it starts to make you question if you can [and] if you would and did she make the right decision. [It was] really yummy to do, as an actor. And physically, how cool to be handcuffed to someone for like, three months. That’s not happening every day. And I got an absolute Ferrari of an actor to be handcuffed to. So I was just, if not playing around with [Rahim], learning and stealing from him constantly.

It’s refreshing to see Amber doubt herself and have to pause in those really intense moments. Because she’s also a mother. It helps drive the story entirely. She’s kind of an atypical protagonist for this genre.

Yeah, totally. That was really important to me. That’s where I would fight back sometimes, if there were times where it was like, “Oh, [you’re being] a bit loud, a bit screechy.” But I would always want to bring it back to the truth. I was like, “Put yourself in this situation, truly. Think about what you would do given these circumstances.” Especially when it comes having just had a child. That was the anchor of it, and that helped inform pretty much every single decision that I made. It was important that it was real. Sometimes you don’t know what to do. And she’s a great problem solver and a risk assessor, but even then, the greatest of those can’t make the right decision in such short spaces of time.

Does the physicality of something like this scare you? What did the stunts entail?

I love all that stuff. I loved how physical it was. I haven’t done really anything like that before, so I welcomed that. When I saw that in the script, I was so excited. Also, it’s not just action for the sake of it. This action is deliberate, and it’s based in truth and the fact that Amber isn’t a contracted killer, she isn’t trained, she isn’t part of a SWAT team. She’s never encountered anything like this at work before. Sure, she’s fit. Maybe she goes to the gym now and again, but I love the idea of taking a woman who had had a child six months before, [who is] taking a break from her somewhat physical occupation, and it’s her first day back. It was about how we informed the movements and the stunts and make it seem like it’s more clumsy and out of work. I do a bit of martial arts. I love that stuff. I like a lot of sports. So for me, it was about unlearning. We actually had the stunt team come and observe me working with a Sensei [in] kickboxing so they could realize, “Okay, right this is where Izuka moves. This is how she works.”

I had a week of stunt rehearsals with Tahar, which is where we actually met. So they were like, “Hey, get to [know] each other,” popped this resistant band on our hands to mimic handcuffs, and then off we went! It became apparent really quickly that it was about me looking less nimble and working with a movement coach to figure out how Amber moves and where she leads from… And also figure out how we were going to do some stuff like get Tahar on my back and run with him whilst handcuffed and put him in a car. But I pretty much did all of it. I ended up doing quite a lot of the stunts. I love cold water. I loved angling above high things, and all the running, all of that sort of stuff. And I did have a really great stunt double called Chad. Anything with fire and explosions, I actually wasn’t allowed to do. I fought so hard to [have] them let me do it, but they couldn’t give a shit. [Laughs.] There was no way I was gonna be allowed to do that, even without the fire and explosion stuff.

This series really rests on yours and Tahar’s chemistry. So talk to me about being handcuffed to him for three months and what work went on behind-the-scenes to build such a convincing on-screen relationship.

We just got really lucky. We instantly clicked and fell in love, so to speak. Tahar is a dear friend now and hopefully will be forever. We were thrown in the deep end — we didn’t meet until that first day of stunt rehearsals, and then we were with each other for a week, and then we did a read-through. Next thing, we’re in Wales, and we were preparing to shoot. We never had character development, character analyzing [conversations], never sat down and [read through] our [scripts]. We never went for dinner to talk everything through. It truly did happen throughout filming, and we just fell into this really loosey-goosey formula that worked for each other.

He is, without a doubt, one of the greatest scene partners I’ve had the pleasure to work with. He is so… Tahar’s eyes change when they call action. He just completely disappears in such a safe way. His process is not invasive of mine. He’s so respectful of the crew and of his other partners. He’s so giving. He listens. He offers. He constantly bats the ping pong ball back [and] whatever I offer, he returns, and vice versa. There are no wrong options, maybe just not enough of them. What did I learn from him? So much. Tahar is a kid trapped in a man’s body. He is a total dreamer. It’s like he never grew up in the best possible way. He’s so smart, he’s so mature, he’s so professional, but his ability to disappear into his imagination and connect to the given circumstances is innate, and it’s so infectious. It made my job easier, because I didn’t have to try. It was like, get out of your head and get into your body and just play. It was about not thinking too much. And he’s a big believer in that. He taught me how to let go, the power of letting go, the power of trusting your prep, and he taught me that the devils are in the details. Yeah, he’s marvelous man. It was a total honor and a privilege to be handcuffed to Tahar, which is a mental thing to say, but it’s true.

I don’t know if I’ve ever heard someone speak so poetically about a co-star before. What would you tease about how Amber and Tibor’s relationship develops over the six episodes?

Amber perhaps changes more than Tibor, simply because he’s also a sociopath, right? So his ability to experience empathy is nowhere near as great as hers. But there are shifts that happen, especially when it comes to their morality. She represents so much of what makes a person weak in Tibor’s eyes, and he represents everything that could be wrong with a human being for her. I think by being handcuffed together and spending so much time in close proximity, they start to teach each other how the other [one] lives.

They literally change each other’s lives and the course of each other’s lives in a really deep way. For Amber, she realizes that the world isn’t black and white, and you don’t really know a person [or] who’s good and who’s bad, [or] who decides which is which. and is that even a thing anymore? He educates her on that, but then she also shows him the importance of empathy and family.

That gray area of morality is really at the forefront in Prisoner.

Tahar always says, actually, “No one’s born evil.” You learn hate and sometimes you’re put in an impossible situation where you have to make decisions [where] part of the collateral damage will be the misfortune of other people. It just so happens we’re following Amber… We live in that gray area for sure.

What kind of roles jump out at you at this point in your career?

I’m gagging to do something really camp now. I love the fact that I’ve been physical, but [I’d like to do] something more specific now — leaning into playing a specific type of athlete and training for a much longer amount of time… I love that part of it. I love that the [Prisoner] process contained a lot of training, and so I would love to play a part that involved deep, deep researching. With Prisoner, what was really beautiful that I loved, which you don’t find as much, was this idea that Amber is a woman and by casting me, therefore, she’s a person of color, and she’s Scottish because I got to keep my accent, and all of this representation just lives in her existence. That’s it. We don’t comment on it. We don’t sexualize her. We don’t compare [Amber and Tibor] at all… And I enjoy watching that and seeing that sort of representation. So anytime where there is an opportunity to do that is brilliant, but [I’d also like to do] something camp and wonderful, something really loud. I’d quite like to show off.

Can you think of anything that’s come out in the last few years that you would have loved to have been in?

If I got this script through right now, I’d be like, “This is exactly what I want to do”: Everything Everywhere All at Once. I’d love a bit of that. That has everything in it. There’s action, there’s drama, there’s beautiful, emotional storylines. I think they’re also doing Kung Fu in it, and then suddenly they’re singing and they’re dancing, and it all works. I love all of that.

Or I’d love to go back to the stage as well. The [Prisoner] rehearsal process was lovely, and that’s something that I missed. It was nice to have time to collaborate with fellow actors and creatives.

Prisoner is out on Sky and NOW April 30.