Ben Chaplin, Anna Devlin, Vinnie Heaven, Amy Manson, Zackary Momoh, Rochelle Neil, Denis O’Hare, Viola Prettejohn, and Kiran Sonia Sawar talk HBO’s The Nevers.
The cast reads more like the list of a Vanity Fair after-party. The Nevers is a Victorian-era sci-fi thriller that stars such an incredible ensemble that we can’t fit them all in the headline – ps. that’s not even half of them! There’s also Laura Donnelly (who is totally badass as Amalia True), James Norton, and Pip Torrens to name a few!
The Knockturnal‘s Kinsey Schofield asked Anna Devlin, Vinnie Heaven, Amy Manson, Zackary Momoh, Rochelle Neil, and Viola Prettejohn about the audition and casting process of such a high-profile project. “I didn’t get a script for ages,” explains Rochelle Neil. “It was HBO so it was very very hush-hush. There was like a link and everything was James Bond style… your laptop would self-destruct if you tried to do anything other than just read the link. Then I read like, an epic scene. It was really long. Like five wordy epic pages.” She put her audition on tape before being called to meet with Joss Whedon.
“I remember coming out of the audition, the final audition, thinking that I just messed it all up!” says Anna Devlin. “Before going in that room, I didn’t know Primrose was a giant! And just before I was about to start my performance, I was told, ‘By the way, you’re playing a giant!'”
After being cast, poor Viola Prettejohn got so swept up in the moment that she forgot to call her Mom! Watch the hilarious story in the video above.
HBO’s original series The Nevers premieres on April 11, 2021. Season one part two will follow at a later date.
Kinsey Schofield is a contributor to The Knockturnal and you can follow her on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.
