Tommy & Tuppence stand out in the larger canon of Agatha Christie creations, in part due to their grounded nature. While characters like Hercule Poirot can feel larger than life, the relationship dynamic between Tommy and Tuppence lent their mysteries a sense of flighty charm that made them so much more fun than many of Christie’s adventures. It’s no surprise then that the characters have been revived multiple times over the years.

That includes their newest incarnations, which are the focus of the modern-day reimagining Tommy & Tuppence on BritBox. During an interview with TVBrittanyF, Antonia Thomas and Josh Dylan delved into balancing their own interpertations of the classic characters with their literary inspiration, finding the naturalism of their dynamic together, and how they honed the characters’ unique vibes to make the show stand out in a crowded genre.

TVBF: Did you look at the original source material and other adaptations when crafting your take on these characters? Or was it more important to focus on your own versions and what the scripts were doing with the characters?

Antonia Thomas: Definitely the scripts. It felt like the most relevant in regard to where we start our story, because the books span the entirety of their lives and their relationship together. You know, the first one starts in their 20s, and in the last one, they’re in their sort of 60s or 70s.

The story that Phoebe has constructed has taken the essence of Tommy and Tuppence, who they are as characters and people and constructed a new story in a modern-day setting. It’s kind of cherry-picked elements of different books. It’s crafted new things. It felt like important to read the first one to understand who they are as people, but to not get too bogged down in the finer details because this is a modern-day retelling. It’s a very different take on it.

Josh Dylan: I think if you grow up in Britain as well, generally speaking, Agatha Christie’s part of the fabric. It’s part of the kind of public consciousness. So there’s, I think, kind of an innate understanding of the ways these stories and characters are crafted. What the atmosphere is.

Antonia: It was important to understand the originals but then also to how to bring that into a modern setting and ground it in a modern way.

Josh: It needed to feel like it was naturalistic.

That dynamic between Tommy and Tuppence is crucial to making the show work. What was that like discovering on set together?

Antonia: It was really fun getting to grips with that. I mean, we did a lot of work together. When we first got cast, we kind of met up a lot and trawled through the scripts. We really wanted to strike the right balance between finding the importance in them stumbling through these crimes and making that feel really real. The fact that they’re not detectives, they’re normal people, and they don’t know what they’re doing. That was important.

Josh: We wanted that to feel really organic, while also plotting where they are as people and where they are going. We wanted that emotional undercurrent.

Antonia: But we were also staying true to the characters. We were honoring the details of each crime. Being able to infuse those scenes where we’re kind of going through quite a lot of exposition [with humanity], where we can tell the audience about peanut oil and lipstick and the this and the that for the case… the work was infusing those moments, which are very detail-oriented, with their relationship and the fun that they have doing those things. Yeah, that was kind of what we focused on together.

What surprised you the most about these characters and their dynamic?

Josh: It’s interesting. I think what was a pleasant surprise was that, like what Antonia was just saying, we were sitting down trying to keep our heads above all these details of these cases, which was often really difficult. There was an energy to it that I think we realized is really [central] to them. There’s this realism to these two people stumbling into cases, getting it wrong half the time, having a light bulb moment, then going with their gut.

The push and pull between them, all of that stuff felt real and challenging and messy and chaotic. We were learning to embrace that and to try and capture that. That’s kind of cool. That feels different, rather than having this austere, cerebral detective duo who have it all worked out. We don’t! These characters don’t have that, so it felt very alive. I think that was a nice surprise when we realized that if we could harness that energy, it could bring people the story with more emotion.

Tommy and Tuppence is now streaming on BritBox.