Richard Armitage heaps praise on his trans Netflix co-star Mary Malone: ‘It has been a revelation’

Richard Armitage, the star of Harlan Coben’s Fool Me Once, is full of praise after starring with trans actor Mary Malone in the author’s latest Netflix adaptation, Missing You.

It stars Slow Horses actress Rosalind Eleazar as Kat Donovan, a detective whose life is turned upside down when she spots her former fiancé Josh (Top Boy‘s Ashley Walters) on a dating app, 11 years after he mysteriously disappeared.

As she dives into the mystery of what happened, she’s forced to reopen a deeply painful wound: the death of her father, Clint, who was also a detective and is played by comedy legend Lenny Henry.

Meanwhile, she and her team, including detective chief inspector Ellis Stagger (Armitage), continue to investigate the disappearance of a number of other people from the local area.

Doctor Who and Fangirls star Malone appears in the five-part series as Aqua, one of Kat’s best friends, and the woman who introduced her to Josh.

The Hobbit star Armitage, who came out as gay publicly in 2023, praised Malone’s performance.

“It has been a revelation working with Mary,” he said. “In the book, [Aqua] is a slightly less evolved character. [She] brings something incredible to a character we don’t often see on TV.

“It has been an absolute pleasure to get to know her and chat to her about what her route through life and into drama. There is a scene in episode five where she is heart-breaking. So, kudos to Mary.”

A recent trailer showed that Aqua is much more than a side character and viewers will see her both at the centre of knife-related violence. 

Victoria Asare-Archer, who helped adapt the show from Coben’s 2014 novel, said Aqua’s character “changed the most” from the original text.

“That character was written over 10 years ago, and the way we portray transgender characters has evolved since then. We were very thoughtful about working with Mary Malone, the actress, and working with various groups to make sure that Aqua felt honest, truthful, sympathetic and sensitive,” she added.

“Obviously, with all Harlan’s characters, dark things happen, but our job was to make sure those happen in a way that didn’t feel exploitative and felt true to the modern world. Mary was great in helping to bring that to life.

“[She] was wonderful, she would do the most intense, dark scenes then skip off set smiling. She was great at washing off the darkness in a way that felt very true to Aqua as a character.”

Missing You is due to stream on Netflix from 1 January.

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