Jim Sturgess & Agyness Deyn On Inhabiting The Pre-Apocalyptic World Of ‘Hard Sun’

Hard Sun is not for the faint of heart; the pre-apocalyptic cop drama from Hulu thrusts viewers into a gritty, unforgiving London where two detectives discover the world is going to end in five years. With MI5 on their tails and a deadly secret to protect, the unconventional duo must find a way to get along and protect themselves from the powers that be. It’s a merciless, gruesome series, but ultimately a rewarding one if you’re willing to stick with it.

So what’s it like to play two people holding onto the world’s biggest, most devastating secret? (And how does one recover after beating the crap out of each other on the first day of shooting?) Hard Sun stars Jim Sturgess and Agyness Deyn have an idea, and we caught up with them at Winter TCA in January and talked existential crises, action scenes, and getting through the end of the world together.

When it came to getting involved in the project, it was almost an immediate decision for the both of them – after just a few pages. “I was drawn to it immediately, just from the opening of the two lead characters in the show, that’s just the most amazing introduction to two characters,” said Sturgess. “Like, I need to know who these people are. And I knew nothing of the concept of Hard Sun or what the show was actually really gonna be about, I was already hooked just with the dynamic of the two characters.” Deyn felt the same way. “By page three, I see this woman, she gets brutally attacked, she holds her own, and she’s a fighter and enigmatic and she’s curious, and I was like, yeah. This is it.”

In a genre where women are usually relegated to specific boxes, Deyn found the depiction of her character to be incredibly freeing. Detective Inspector Elaine Renko is a resilient, layered woman, one who functions a little differently than the female cops we’re used to seeing on screen.

“For me, I definitely feel like I maneuver life, like obviously there’s male and female, but everyone has their own identity and energy, and we all have our masculine and feminine, and the thing that I liked about this is that was the energy that it upholding. That it wasn’t segregating with male and female, that it was an equal playing field, it was a story about survival, it didn’t matter if you were a man or a woman.

It was just about how you deal with this, and Elaine deals with it in a very systematic, in a lot of ways unemotional, a heightened sensibility, and I just thought that was an interesting part that us women have. We’re not just this sexy, emotional kind of complex part of ourselves that we can all be – men and women – and it was interesting to play a woman who just doesn’t give a shit. And is kind of openly kind of very antisocial and is an island and is in a lot of ways socially impenetrable. And that’s one of the journeys that she goes on… because she’s so independent, and to become dependent, and can she rely on someone else? Because she’s so self-sufficient.

One thing about Elaine is that the way that she survives is that she grabs it and she looks at it, you know, which is like a really refreshing way, if she’s grabbing it and she’s looking at it, then the thing that’s most important that she’s dealing with is situational… I love that about her, that she grabs everything by the throat and she really looks at it.”

Renko’s character isn’t the only one whose story isn’t told in black-and-white, either; Hard Sun doesn’t deal in hands of moral absolutism, but rather offers multiple perspectives to how one might grapple with such an event. “Even with the criminals that are gonna come into the show, there’s a perspective – it’s an incorrect perspective, perhaps, or it’s a fucking warped one – you can sort’ve see, cause the show really looks at if you were to know that things were not gonna be around, how would you behave?” said Sturgess. “And it sort of brings out extreme behaviors. So whatever you have going on in your own personal life is gonna come bubbling up to the surface.”

If we were to have the knowledge that the world was going to come to a fiery end in the next five years, there would certainly be a spectrum of behavior – and the series doesn’t shy away from depicting that, no matter how gruesome it may be. “The interesting thing is, there will be people who will go to a very dark place, and use it as a reason to create chaos and ultimate mayhem and dare to be as dark as they can possibly imagine themselves to be,” Sturgess said. “And they’ll be a lot of people who want to maintain order for the last days on Earth, and make sure that it’s all okay and we’re all loving each other and we’re all in a happy spot. You know, that all your demons have been put to bed and that you’re at peace with the world and yourself and relationships, so you know, it really looks into different ways of tackling your last days on Earth… And in a detective show, I mean, that’s a pretty exciting way of trying to keep law and order in a potentially lawless world.”

While the two have a fairly contentious relationship on-screen (and Deyn nearly broke Sturgess’ nose during one particularly intense fight scene!), the duo admitted that they wouldn’t have been able to get through it without each other. “The adrenaline of getting through each day was intense,” said Sturgess. “Me and Agyness were talking about this the other day, we’re really the only two people who know what the other one went through. No one else knows what we went through.” Deyn agreed. “It was full-on. Jim and I joked all the way through it, that you have to have a sense of humor. But by the end, we were like, ‘we survived’.”

Despite taking place in London, there’s a true universality to the series, and that’s what both stars hope will translate as Hard Sun makes its way from the BBC over to Hulu. “The concept of the show affects everybody. I think really it’s about human interactions and human relationships and this sort’ve personal journey,” said Sturgess. The overarching themes of trauma in the series are also bound to resonate with viewers. “It’s always there. In reality, when you’re faced with something that’s brutally traumatic, the knowledge of that, I feel like one slips in of like, oh it’s real, it’s not real, and you can’t forget,” said Deyn. “And then there’s like this moment of ‘oh my god, fuck, shit.’ So the natural human instinct is to push the trauma away to some respect.” But Hard Sun often forces viewers to face it.

“I think everyone can relate to what they may or may not do in their last years knowing that the world is gonna come to an end,” said Sturgess. “Everyone can attach themselves to friends, family, loved ones, and think, how would I operate in a situation like that? I hope that it has a universal appeal.”

As for a potential second season? That’s still up in the air, but both Deyn and Sturgess would love to return. “It feels like it’s just getting started,” said Sturgess. The end of the first season, you think, well now it’s on. It almost feels like the first season is a prelude to what’s really gonna happen.”

All episodes of Hard Sun will debut on Hulu Wednesday, March 7.