Hostage, Netflix’s latest thriller, has everything. High-stakes drama. Suranne Jones emoting her hardest. Political commentary. And a rocket-fuelled finale.
At the centre of all the action is Corey Mylchreest. He plays Matheo, the son-in-law of the French President (Julie Delpy), who finds himself dragged into the action when both she and Jones’ British Prime Minister, Abigail, end up being blackmailed.
It’s a nail-biting premise: the UK, as portrayed in Hostage, is a divided nation. Not only are its borders in crisis, but the NHS has run out of life-saving drugs and is dependent on France’s goodwill to obtain more.
It’s a depressing image, and one that lines up neatly with the state of the UK today. Especially when it comes to the image of the failing NHS.
“I was born in 1998, and I don't think there’s been a time in my life where the NHS hasn't been crumbling,” Mylchreest says. “I think that that is that is one of the defining factors of why the show is particularly relevant.”
He’s also quick to stress, though, that this is more of a thriller than it is political. And that the challenge of playing Matheo has been a welcome change from his usual acting roles.
Born in London, Mylchreest attended drama classes at Guildhall growing up and pivoted to acting as a career at the age of 13 or 14.
“I got the bug, more so through learning that there was an actual technique and studying that you could do,” he says. “It wasn't just talent, because I've said this my whole life and I stand true to it now. I don't think I'm a particularly talented person, but I do think I'm quite a hard-working person.”
It’s stood him in good stead, especially given how crowded the market is. As Mylchreest puts it, acting is “an over-saturated, over-populated industry.”
“My experience is that it is hyper competitive. But although we all live in this hyper competitive world, some of my best friends are people that steal roles from me; I steal roles from them.”
He has carved out a space on Netflix: appearing first as the troubled King George III in Queen Charlotte, then in My Oxford Year, where he stars as the love interest – both “soft boy” roles, he readily admits.
They’ve catapulted him to fame, very quickly. He was even recognised on a remote Brazilian island around the launch of Queen Charlotte (apparently Bridgerton is massive in Brazil): “that was quite intense.”
“I think a lot of people think that it's quite easy to have a large ego or get quite big headed,” he says. “For me, I would say that the battle is trying not to hide or get too anxious with it.”
With Hostage now streaming, he has other roles in the pipeline – which he declines to talk about. Except for one thing: he’s said in the past that he’d like to play a “prick”, and “I might be covering a segment of that in this thing that I'll start filming next month.”
“Prick is the English subliminal way of saying the very cringey sentence, which is I would love to play a villain,” he adds hastily. “Which is surely the most fun in the world.”
Hostage is streaming now on Netflix
