Richard Armitage and Rosalind Eleazar on why you'll binge Missing You in one sitting

What do you do when your estranged ex-fiancé suddenly pops up on a dating app? That’s the intriguing jumping-off point in Missing You, the latest Netflix adaptation of a thriller by bestselling American author Harlan Coben.

With a stellar cast that includes Fool Me Once’s Richard Armitage, Top Boy’s Ashley Walters, Inside No. 9’s Steve Pemberton, Van der Valk’s Marc Warren and Sir Lenny Henry, the five-parter centers on a detective who is haunted by her past.

Slow Horses actor Rosalind Eleazar stars as singleton Kat Donovan, who is encouraged by her friend Stacey (former EastEnders star Jessica Plummer) to try a new dating app. However, she is totally blindsided when her ex Josh (Walters), who disappeared years earlier before their wedding and hasn’t been heard from since appears on it as a potential love match!

Meanwhile, Kat is struggling to get over the murder of her police officer father Clint (Henry), who is a close friend of her boss DCI Ellis Stagger (Armitage). Desperate to get answers from hitman Monte Leburne (Warren), who is serving life for the crime, she visits him in prison, where he drops an absolute bombshell.

We caught up with on-screen colleagues Ros and Richard for a full briefing…

What can you tell us about your characters, DI Kat Donovan and DCI Ellis Stagger?

Ros: "When we first meet Kat, people might think of her as quite a strong person, but we see that getting chipped away. She has a lot of anger and unanswered questions, and she doesn’t believe the circumstances surrounding her father’s murder."

Richard: "I’ve never played a detective before, and it’s nice to take on a role that is the authority figure. As a detective, Stagger’s main goal is to get to the truth, but he is holding onto a secret, which makes for an interesting tension inside the character!"

They work together on the force. What is the dynamic between them like?

Ros: "Officers like DCI Stagger were almost like uncles to Kat. But now that she’s a detective, she can’t push him too much, because he was one of her father’s best friends."

Richard: "Stagger admires Kat and wants to see her thrive. He sees elements of his best friend Clint in her, such as her ballsiness, refusal to follow the rules, and sense of humor."

What do you see as the big themes in this story?

Ros: "Trust is an over-arching theme because Kat wouldn’t be so far down this line if she didn’t trust people."

Richard: "Identity and technology are two of Harlan’s [Coben, author of Missing You] signatures. He used them very well in Fool Me Once [the hugely popular Netflix Coben adaptation Richard also starred in] with the nanny cam. In Missing You, the equivalent of the nanny cam is the dating app!"

What were the most enjoyable or unusual aspects of filming this series?

Ros: "It was interesting having to do a karaoke power ballad with Ashley [Walters]!"

Richard: "I grew up watching the sketch show Three of a Kind with Lenny Henry, David Copperfield and Tracy Ullman. So to see Lenny playing a challenging dramatic role like this was a revelation. And he still makes me laugh!"

What makes Harlan Coben thrillers so popular and addictive?

Ros: "I think all of Harlan’s shows are bingers, and people will be able to binge Missing You in one sitting. With the cliffhangers at the end of each episode, you’re like: ‘Give me the next one!’"

Richard: "The thing about Harlan’s writing is that he never lets you down. This is a real page-turner of a script, and the books are just the same!"

Missing You launches worldwide on Netflix on January 1 2025. You'll be able to binge all five episodes of the series from then.