Game of Thrones alum Sophie Turner stars in explosive new crime thriller Steal

Crime novelist S.A. Nikias says he could never plan a heist in real life, but in Steal, the new crime drama starring Game of Thrones actor Sophie Turner, Nikias imagines the perfect crime based on his own time working in an office in central London. “The company that is heisted in the show is very similar to my old day job,” he says. “In terms of workplace authenticity, it was very much drawing on my own experiences. You felt it was a very vulnerable place to work, once you realized the security was very low. And once you’re past that very low security, you can absolutely wreak a havoc if you know what you’re doing.”

Heists are tried and true in film and television, but Steal takes the viewers away from the days of Point Break and into the 21st century. “It is like an update on a traditional heist,” says Nikias. “Instead of someone walking into a bank and putting a gun to a cashier’s head and taking physical money, this was the modern digital version where they walk in, put a gun to a bank employee’s head, and digitally transfer the money overseas.” For the novelist, figuring out the heist was a fun exercise, but his goal was also to not to waste a lot of time on whodunit. “The heist happens in episode one, and the rest of the show is the fallout,” says Nikias. “That’s where the texture and the richness come in, pulling on the threads of ‘Why did this happen? Why did that happen? Who was involved?’ All those mysteries are where you can add the thematic richness to the story.”

The show centers on Zara (Turner) and Luke (Archie Madekwe), two employees at the financial institution being robbed in the series premiere. “It’s about two young people working in dead end jobs — jobs where all you can do is look at the clock, waiting to finish your shift,” says Nikias. “It’s also about money. London is a money-laundering centre and there’s a lot of dirty money sloshing around the city. These themes of, ‘What is dirty money? What is clean money? How can you have a moral relationship to money?’ are the kind of things I was interested in exploring.”

While Luke and Zara spend all day, every day, in proximity to obscene amounts of money, their professional dedication has resulted in very little personal gain for these two. “Zara has been working at this job for years and getting absolutely nowhere,” says Turner. “She’s unfulfilled and underappreciated and a bit of a mess. She doesn’t know who she is or what she wants, but she thinks money [is the answer].” Luke feels equally stuck in his job but presents a different image to the outside world. “He is externally presenting a life that he wants, so he’s spending a of money on clothes, on watches, on gadgets, but he’s maxing out credit cards and sinking deeper into debt,” says Madekwe. “He feels overwhelmed and starts making some terrible decisions in order to change his circumstances.”

When the two are forced at gunpoint to assist the robbers, the events impact each of them differently. “Zara discovers a steeliness and a capability of dealing with a terribly frightening situation that surprises her, and Luke unravels in a way that surprises even him,” Nikias. “They become the perfect double act of trying to survive while two of the four wheels in the car are coming off.” The characters’ constant state of uncertainty might normally have been a challenge for the actors. This time, however, “it helped with the performance,” says Madekwe. “They don’t really know what they’re in the middle of, so it helped that we were confused, because there’s not much acting required.”

Trying to solve the crime is DCI Rhys, played by Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, who quickly zooms in on Zara. “The idea behind Rhys and Zara was like a cat and mouse game,” says Nikias. “He comes along as an antagonist, but then he sort of becomes an ally. There’s this push and pull of, ‘Are they on the same team?’ It feels like their interests are aligned and then sometimes it feels like there’s a conflict of interest. Who’s playing who?” Whether they are playing for the same team or not, one thing is for sure. “Their sexual chemistry is off the charts, baby,” says Turner. “It’s a really fun relationship, where they’re testing each other and poking each other and sniffing each other out and trying to figure out, ‘Are you my enemy? Are you my friend?’ ”

By design, every main character in Steal has a handicap that makes them the perfect suspect. “Luke is probably on Instagram quite a bit and he’s trying to live a fake glamorous life. I love those kind of characters who are a bit self-deluded, because they’re quite fun to watch and they get themselves in a lot of trouble,” says Nikias. Meanwhile, Zara’s lack of upward mobility is a conundrum. “She’s bright, she’s smart, she could do something with her life, but she hasn’t and there’s a mystery about that,” says Nikias. “Is it because the system is rigged against her or is it just because she’s unambitious? Or is it because people with that personality type just generally are happy with what they’ve got?”

Even the police detective has an Achilles heel, with Rhys revealed to be strugging with gambling addiction. Having recently relapsed, he’s dug himself into considerable dept. As the series’ synopsis explains, “Rhys must keep his own money problems at bay while dealing with the secret agendas and competing interests at the center of this far-reaching crime.”

For the normally solitary writer, working with a production team on the project was enlightening. “It’s reassuring,” admits Nikias. “If you’re writing a novel, you are in charge of quality control and you have to motivate yourself to make it as good as it can be. But when you’re working with other people, if they’re pushing you, saying, ‘There’s a better version there,’ you get to a point where you’re really confident in it. As quite an anxious person, the idea that we’ve all worked really hard and we’ve done our best, it relaxes you and you get a bit of peace of mind over the finished thing.”

From his perspective as an actor, Madekwe feels like Nikias’ goal was unequivocally reached. “Reading it, I felt the same kind of thing that you feel when you’re watching it,” he says “It was so anxiety inducing. It was so thrilling. It was so exciting. It kept you guessing and you get to the end [of the first episode] and the roles that we’re so used to seeing are thrown up in the air. It really keeps you on your toes.”

Steal, streaming on Prime Video