Coben spoke exclusively with RadioTimes.com about working with her father on shows including Fool Me Once.

By James Hibbs

Published: Friday, 01 March 2024 at 05:00 AM


New Prime Video series Dead Hot comes from Charlotte Coben, the daughter of Harlan Coben, known for his novels and their adaptations including Netflix‘s The Stranger and Fool Me Once.

Charlotte has previously worked with her father on a number of his previous shows, including the two mentioned above, and also co-created Shelter with him for Prime Video, which was based on one of his novels.

RadioTimes.com caught up with Charlotte about the new series exclusively, and asked what she learnt from working with her father that she took into creating her own brand new series.

She said: “Like, every single lesson you can think of. Working on those shows with him was like the most intense crash course in filmmaking and screenwriting.

“I guess I learnt to trust myself and know when to speak up and if you feel something in your gut should be one way or the other, don’t be afraid to use your voice.”

Bilal Hasna and Vivian Oparah looking at the camera and stood next to each other in Dead Hot
Bilal Hasna and Vivian Oparah in Dead Hot
Matt Squire/Amazon MGM Studios

She continued: “I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty passive person, and I learnt through this that I’m maybe not that person when it comes to work, and that I actually have a lot of opinions that I really care about how we do certain things, and I’m very passionate about what we’ve made.”

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Dead Hot follows Elliot, a young man played by Bilal Hasna, and Jess, his best-friend and his previous boyfriend Peter’s twin sister, played by Vivian Oparah.

Peter disappeared five years ago with just a severed finger of his left to be found, and when strange things start happening to Elliot and Jess once again, they investigate just what is, and what has been going on.

Speaking with RadioTimes.com, Hasna previously explained how Charlotte’s writing compares with that of her father, explaining that they are “like a Venn diagram, but they’re both quite different as well“.

He said: “I think Charlotte really shares in her father’s sophisticated, knotty plotlines, that are often quite surprising, and often quite thrilling, and take you by surprise.

“But I think, whereas Harlan’s stuff feels more naturalistic across the board, I think Charlotte has a slightly different aesthetic, that does have to do with that larger than life, and camp and colourful and hyper-poppy world, and using that world to understand the realism of certain kinds of relationships or certain kinds of emotions.”