Missing You author Harlan Coben 'cried' at emotional Netflix thriller

Harlan Coben fans can expect a more emotional watch than usual when his latest Netflix adaptation launches on New Year's Day as the thriller author said he was in tears at the final episode.

Missing You stars Rosalind Eleazar as Detective Kat Donovan, who stumbles across her fiance Josh Buchanan (Ashley Walters) on a dating app 11 years after he disappeared into thin air, unearthing secrets and deep-buried hurt.

While it has all the hallmarks of an addictive Coben thriller, the writer shared that viewers would take the story to heart much more than some of his other tales - as he had done, too.

Speaking ahead of Missing You's launch, Coben said: "We want to keep the twists and turns and the suspense, but this is also a love story. Really, the story between Kat and Josh is at the centre, but also there's a lot here, this family, what happened to her father, it's the friendships that she gets to enjoy...And so all these different things we're combining into family drama, the thriller and the love story.

"This is five episodes. Most of the ones we've done are eight. It's a little tighter on story and I can say that this is the most emotional ending that I've experienced. When I watched episode five I actually cried. I actually cried. I think I had a little bit of a tear in my eye at Fool Me Once also, but I think this will be our most emotional series."

Missing You champions diversity

Series writer and executive producer Victoria Asare-Archer has worked with Coben before on a Netflix adaptation of his novel Stay Close, but said she was particularly proud of Missing You for showcasing Black actors and keeping a diverse crew, too.

The cast also includes Jessica Plummer and Sir Lenny Henry, and Asare-Archer said: "Just look at this cast. It's like a roll call of Black excellence. It's incredible.

"This is what this series is about, it’s a chance to write some of the most incredible stories for some of the best Black actors and actresses working today, and that representation went all the way through - we've got two extraordinary directors of colour, we had diversity in sound and makeup and costumes across the whole thing. And to do that on one of Netflix's biggest shows, it's pretty extraordinary. We're all really proud of this."

Missing You is a love story as well as a thriller

Coben is of course known as the king of the gripping thriller, but as he pointed out, Missing You is just as much a love story as it follows what happened between Kat and Josh.

Asare-Archer agreed with him: "Like Harland said, this is a love story. But ultimately, there's so many different flavours of love. This is about her love for her friends, her mum, her father, her work. Kat is a really loving, intense, emotional character. I think that's what drives so many of the twists and turns, all of these characters are making such big crazy choices. And that's because it's all coming from a place of love. So it's a really romantic story.

"The love story between Kat and Josh is just extraordinary, but it's all it's about love for all of the different types of people in her life, which is very special."

Missing You's star Rosalind Eleazar said of her character Kat: "All her relationships really ground the show. Her relationship with her mum and and with her friends and also the male influences in her life, they're all so unique.

"The relationships have shaped her, and it also plays into the story, because she trusts everyone. And they obviously have her best interests at heart and would probably have a different opinion to Kat, especially as we go through the story and things are revealed. But she implicitly trusts them, and that's why it's taken her so long to uncover, or at least delve into painful aspects of her past.

"Richard Armitage (who plays Ellis Stagger) and I have worked together before in a much different relationship as lovers in the last thing that we did. This one he is a father figure. But that was really fun for me to explore the different natures of of her relationships."

Rosalind Eleazar and Ashley Walters' on-screen bond

Despite Kat and Josh's main relationship having taken place 11 years earlier, Eleazar and her co-star Ashley Walters worked on some strong on-screen chemistry by exploring their past together.

Top Boy star Walters explained: "It was just literally us spending time together and understanding where that relationship was, because obviously Josh and Kat's main time together was in the past. So it's just getting yourself into that headspace of having that distance from someone, that amount of time, and being thrown back in the mix with them, how you react to that, I guess.

"But it was tough and we really had to be mindful of tracking that journey, going back and forth. It meant a lot of times off camera on Zoom and FaceTime, me and Roz after work, before work, just talking about those things so we were on the same page as to where they are."

Slow Horses star Eleazar agreed: "Because there's such a huge gap and the nature of him leaving, it was so abrupt. Part of the job of an actor is to not judge your character's decisions and as an actor you really want to make sense of every aspect of your character's journey.

"But with love, it's so contradictory, your feelings, and one thing that I struggled with was him coming back into her life, how does she feel about it? Because of the way that he left. But two things can exist at the same time, you can have this deep want for someone and you can also really hate them for what they've done. We spent a lot of time together and we texted every day."

Missing You streams on Netflix from New Year's Day.