WWhen Rosalind Eleazar married on a Greek island last year, she asked her agents not to contact her about work. But the day after the wedding (which took place in a mini amphitheater – “we’re so extra”) she was “extremely hungover” when she got a call about a job: starring in the new Netflix adaptation “Missing You.” by Harlan Coben. Eleazar bought the book immediately and spent her honeymoon reading it, to the mild annoyance of her new husband, the Italian producer and director Gabriele Lo Giudice (“he wasn’t particularly happy”). “These last five pages – are you kidding me?” She shakes her head, her eyes wide. “Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined it would lead to this.”

It’s a pretty typical reaction to a Coben story. In recent years, the American mystery author has turned his best-selling novels into an enormously successful television universe: With 107.5 million views, “Fool Me Once” is the most-watched Netflix series of 2024 this year. Eleazar is sure However, aware that critics may be skeptical given the glossy and endlessly twisted adaptations. “Everyone has the right to their own opinion,” she says. “But a) there is something for everyone; and b) let it live in the space it wants to live in. There’s no need to compare it to Succession.”

In “Missing You,” which releases five exciting episodes on New Year’s Day, the 36-year-old, best known for spy thriller “Slow Horses” on Apple TV+, leads a cast that includes Lenny Henry, Ashley Walters and Coben regular Richard Armitage. We meet Detective Kat Donovan 11 years after the double trauma of her father’s murder and her fiancé leaving without explanation. But when her ex shows up on a dating app, Donovan pulls the string and uncovers the reasons for his disappearance and the truth about her father’s death. Of course, since it’s Coben, there’s police corruption, multiple kidnappings and Steve Pemberton as a sinister dog breeder. “It’s relentless!” says Eleazar cheerfully. “What I like about (Donovan) is that she’s a survivor. She has these moments where she’s incredibly hurt but immediately recovers. I think people do that a lot more in life than TV lets on.”

Having previously worked on Armando Iannucci’s The Personal History of David Copperfield, which featured colorblind actors, Eleazar appreciated Missing You’s approach to race: “It was just about allowing a predominantly black cast to work in the commercial world to exist and have fun – well, not.” Fun, because it’s a traumatic story! But they just exist and there’s no mention of race… The culture and our costume designers have taken into consideration things like what the aunts wear. I always push to show my natural hair in shows and those were conscious decisions.”

The daughter of a white British mother and a Ghanaian father, Eleazar grew up in Clapham, south London. “I was very close to my mother as a protector,” she says. “I never really felt like I fit in without being too violin-heavy. I think part of it has to do with the fact that I was raised on the white side of my family. Some of my earliest memories are of people not thinking my mother was my mother, so I spent a lot of time trying to prove that she was.”

Eleazar and her mother regularly visited Ghana – “one of the most extraordinary places on the planet” – and after graduating from the University of Nottingham with a degree in Mandarin and Spanish, she moved there for a few years. “On one particular visit, (my dad) had said, ‘When you get out of college, why don’t you come here, meet the family, get to know me?’ Unfortunately, he died beforehand, but I decided to go there anyway.” Several of her siblings are active in the Ghanaian film and television industry and working for her brother’s production company reminded Eleazar how much she had loved being in to take part in school plays. In her mid-20s she moved back to the UK to study at Lamda. Since graduating, she has starred in “The Starry Messenger” opposite Matthew Broderick and in “Uncle Vanya,” for which she won the 2020 Clarence Derwent Award.

Now she and Lo Giudice live in east London, handy for the seemingly constant filming of Eleazar’s biggest hit to date, Slow Horses. With season five already completed and set to air next year, she is currently filming season six and is clearly enamored with the series, which follows a ragtag group of MI5 misfits led by Gary Oldman and Jack Lowden . “Oh my God, I absolutely love it,” she says. “You know what I find interesting about the Slow Horses? They’re competent, but they’re just plain offensive. You don’t want to go to dinner with them.” Her feelings about the cast themselves couldn’t be more conflicting – they’re very close and are hit hard by the show’s willingness to eliminate the main characters: “When one person gets killed, it shifts the energy.”

While “Slow Horses” was a sleeper hit, earning his first Emmy win (for writing) in September by word of mouth, Eleazar knows that “Missing You” couldn’t be more different: highly anticipated by millions of dedicated Coben fans, who are waiting for a contribution – Christmas hit with fleeting thrills. “The fact is, people are devouring it,” Eleazar says. “The numbers are crazy. In a way it’s a bit of a shame that it is like this. You think, “Wow, this is done in five hours,” and it took me five months, others even longer. But look, here we are.”