Jenna Coleman: ‘My new series Wilderness is like a hallucinogenic trip’

Sep 05, 2023

Jenna Coleman loves the challenge of a gripping drama – she’s played a distraught mother in The Cry, the girlfriend of a serial killer in The Serpent, and the formidable monarch in Victoria.

Now, in the new Prime Video drama Wilderness , Jenna takes on the role of Liv Taylor – a woman who seems to have it all, until a shocking discovery turns her life upside down.

“Wilderness is a very big story,” begins Jenna. “It’s about a woman who finds out her husband is cheating on her, and she begins to plot ways and means in which to kill him.

“But what ensues is a very different chain of events, almost like a roller-coaster or an acid trip. It’s a hallucinogenic, mad, trippy, wonky, unexpected journey for a character or any person to go on. It’s like a domino effect that’s uncontrollable and unstoppable.”

Jenna Coleman as Liv Taylor in 'Wilderness'

Jenna’s character Liv has a cunning killer plan up her sleeve in Wilderness

The six-part series sees Liv and her husband Will (played by Oliver Jackson-Cohen) go on an epic road trip around the States. For Will, it’s a chance to make amends. For Liv, it’s the perfect place to get revenge. And for the Brit members of the cast, that meant a trip around the USA.

“Filming was back-to-back, but the locations we got to shoot at were great,” she says. “Like the Bellagio hotel and down the Strip in Las Vegas. We shot at the Breakfast At Tiffany’s house in New York, which was very very cool, Central Park and the Meatpacking District.

“We went to the Grand Canyon in Arizona and Banff in Canada, which is extremely beautiful and one of the first places we shot at. It felt like we really did get to explore those places. And then me and Oli managed to stop at Sedona on the way back to the airport. We were pretty spoiled by the shoot.”

While Liv is desperate to bump off her husband for his cheating ways, Jenna, 37, and Oliver, 36, were on much better terms than their counterparts.

“I’d never met Oli before,” says Jenna. “When we were both sent this project, we were at this event, and I saw him across the room, and he looked at me, and we were both like ‘Are you…?’

“So we had this impromptu meeting before we actually started together. And from the off it was instant and easy, and it was a pleasure. With a project like this you need it because the narrative is so dark. The two of us were completely giddy and playful, and it was such an easy and pleasurable experience.”

Joining Jenna and Oliver in the series are Ashley Benson and Eric Balfour

Nobody’s perfect, however, and the 5ft 2in actress admits she managed to find one fault with her 6ft 3in co-star: “He’s too tall!”

Watch Wilderness on Prime Video from 15th September

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