Neil Cross on “The Iris Affair” and the Importance of Humor

SkyShowtime has a new thriller, The Iris Affair, created by Neil Cross (Luther), starring Niamh Algar and Tom Hollander. The plot centers on Iris Nixon (Algar), a brilliant woman who, after solving a series of online puzzles, meets businessman Cameron Beck (Hollander) in florence.

Beck invites Iris to work for him, unlocking a powerful, top-secret technology. Intrigued, she accepts.However, upon discovering the technology’s risky potential, Iris steals the journal containing its activation sequence and disappears.

This disappearance triggers a relentless pursuit, from a remote Sardinian cabin to the bustling streets of Rome, as Beck races to find Iris in a high-stakes game where trust is a liability and failure is catastrophic. We spoke with Cross about his latest project, now available on SkyShowtime.

Who do you write for nowadays? Do you write for yourself,for your audience,or who do you consider when developing a new project?

I essentially write for myself. Even when I collaborate with other screenwriters, I tell them I’m only interested in reading what they write, regardless of publication. I began writing at six or seven, creating comic pages where drawings were easier than speech bubbles.I didn’t know *what* to write, so I reversed the process, writing dialog and than adding the illustrations.

This series is visually brighter than much of your previous work. Do you think critics and awards will recognize it? Prestige often seems linked to darkness.

I completely agree. It’s a mystery I constantly grapple with. I think people mistake seriousness for intellectual depth. But works that explore fundamental aspects of our existence, the pinnacle of human achievement, would be nothing without humor, as it’s an essential part of who we are.

I haven’t read Don Quixote, but it’s the best, the first, and the greatest novel ever written, and it’s fundamentally comic.I’m going to get into trouble: in the highest echelons of our industry, there are people who lack confidence in their intelligence. they believe they must be excessively serious and dark to compensate for this insecurity.