Joel Kinnaman & Mireille Enos to lead TV series based on Joe Wright’s Hanna

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Remember HANNA? The 2011 thriller from Joe Wright starred Saoirse Ronan as a young girl trained as an assassin by her ex-CIA operative father (Eric Bana) in the wilderness of Finland, and although I can remember watching it and recall that it received positive reviews, much of the film seems to have slipped from my mind. Thankfully, Amazon is here to jog my memory with a new TV adaptation of HANNA, which it ordered straight-to-series last May, and now, Variety reports that the upcoming series had nailed down its three leads.

Mireille Enos and Joel Kinnaman, who previously starred together in The Killing, have both been cast in Hanna alongside Esme Creed-Miles, who will play the title character. Enos will play Marissa, "an efficient and ruthless agent, having risen up the ranks of the CIA. However, beneath her cool exterior is a deeply buried secret that continues to haunt her. The reappearance of Hanna and her father Erik threaten to expose the past she has worked to repress." Kinnaman will play Hanna's father, Erik, "a hardened, intuitive and uncompromising soldier and mercenary, who, for the past 15 years, has raised his daughter in the remote forests of northern Poland. Isolated from the world he once knew, he has trained Hanna in every method of survival, with his only goal, to keep her safe. But, his teenage daughter begins to seek freedom from the restricted haven he has created." Much like the feature-film incarnation, Hanna (Creed-Miles) has lived all of her life in a forest before she becomes the heart of an unraveling conspiracy. "Hanna feels she must leave the confinement of the forest to experience life, but once in the world, Hanna is hunted by Marissa and others connected to Hanna’s hidden origins and exceptional abilities."

Production on Hanna is expected to kick off this March in Hungary, Slovakia, Spain, and the U.K. with Sarah Adina Smith (Legion) set to direct. In a statement, David Farr, co-writer of the original film who will also be penning the series, said:

I’m thrilled that ‘Hanna’ has managed to attract a visionary director and actors of the calibre of Mireille and Joel to play our adult leads. And in Esme Creed-Miles I believe we have discovered a star of the future – she is going to be a very special Hanna. ‘Hanna’ aims to be both a raw-knuckle ride and a deeply touching family drama. It has the visceral excitement of a genuine conspiracy thriller but also the simple humanity of a rites of passage drama. Hanna is in a very unusual family. She’s a very special teenager. But all teenagers think they’re abnormal. She’s just a little more abnormal than most.

Joel Kinnaman can currently be seen in Netflix's Altered Carbon while Mireille Enos recently appearing on Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams as well as the upcoming Good Omens mini-series based upon the novel by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.