Sky's 'The Iris Affair' Opens Wide to Include Multiple A-Listers
Tom Hollander as Cameron Beck and Niamh Algar as Iris Nixon in 'The Iris Affair'
Sky
Fans of Luther are still hoping that series star Idris Elba and creator Neil Cross will manage to work out a deal to make a sequel to Netflix's well-received 2023 film, Luther: The Fallen Sun. But until schedules magically align (and Netflix decides to hand over some money), fans will have to be content with Cross's newest series, The Iris Affair, which will debut on the premium streaming service/pay channel Sky in 2025.
Initially titled Iris, the Cross series was first announced in May 2024 when Sky commissioned production with stars Niamh Algar (Playing Nice) and Tom Hollander (Us). Algar stars as the titular Iris Nixon (or the Iris of the Affair, if you will), described as "equal parts rootless genius and puzzle addict," who works the traumatizing and thankless job of flagging harmful content for a social media platform. When she solves an unbreakable code, it leads her to the sun-drenched area of Florence, where she discovers the code she cracked may be heading into the wrong hands. Like any sensible, extremely online sleuth, Iris does the only practical thing: she steals it and disappears.
When the series was announced initially, Cross said, “All I wanted to do was to make a show I wanted to watch. Iris is an unapologetically exciting, witty, chase-driven adventure show and features a lead character the like of which I don't think we've ever met before on TV.”
If it's anything close to Luther, it's going to be a hit. Check out the first images.
Tom Hollander as Cameron Beck in 'The Iris Affair'
Sky
Here's the series synopsis:
The Iris Affair is a tense and cinematic chase thriller that pits two brilliant minds against each other in a deadly game of hide and seek across Italy.
When enigmatic genius Iris Nixon cracks a string of complex online puzzles, she’s led to a piazza in Florence, where she meets charismatic entrepreneur Cameron Beck. He invites her to work for him to unlock a powerful and top-secret piece of technology. Her curiosity piqued, she accepts. But when Iris discovers its dangerous potential, she steals the journal containing the device’s activation sequence—and vanishes.
What follows is a relentless pursuit, from a remote cabin in Sardinia through the bustling streets of Rome, as Cameron races to find Iris in a high-stakes game where trust is dangerous and failure could be catastrophic.
Hollander and Algar lead an ensemble cast that includes British actors Harry Lloyd (I, Jack Wright), Sacha Dhawan (The Great), Angela Bruce (Doctor Who), Peter Sullivan (Poldark), Norweigan actor Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones), American actor Debi Mazar (Kaos), and Italian actors Marco Leonardi (Das Boot), Maya Sansa (Irma Vep), Lorenzo De Moor (Another Simple Favor) and newcomer Meréana Tomlinson.
Niamh Algar as Iris Nixon in 'The Iris Affair'
Sky
The series was created by Neil Cross, who serves as showrunner and penned several episodes alongside writers Susan E. Connolly (Hidden Assets) and Ian Scott McCullough (The Mosquito Coast). Directors Terry McDonough (Killing Eve) and Sarah O’Gorman (A Gentleman in Moscow) split helming duties across the show's eight installments, with Tim Bricknell producing.
Cross and McDonough are also executive producers on the series, along with Adrian Sturges for Sky Studios and Jenni Sherwood & Dante Di Loreto for Fremantle. The series does not yet have an American distributor, which suggests that wherever it ends up, it won't be Peacock, Sky's sister company under the Comcast umbrella. (If it were, they'd be listed as a co-producer.)
The Iris Affair will debut on Sky before the end of 2025, and hopefully, by then, it will have a U.S. release date as well.
