Critics comment on the curious career of Sophie Turner, who amended the mega success of Game of Thrones with X-Men and other films far removed from the universe of period dramas. Whether supporting or starring, in drama, action, horror, or comedy, the actress has remained active and in demand. For Brits, her most recent choice is curious: Sophie will play the diamond thief Joan Hannington and the footage that is already rolling in London shows the 1980s look that must prevail in the narrative. Joan is yet another true-crime-bio-series story that is always in demand, while for foreigners, it is worth a trip to understand the reason for their interest in this history.

In the criminal underworld, Joan Hannington became known as “The Godmother”, a far cry from when she was just a single mother desperate to support her children. She was for many years one of Britain’s most notorious criminals, now retired and author of the best-selling book that is the basis of the series: I Am What I Am: The True Story of Britain’s Most Notorious Jewel Thief, published in 2004. The real Joan, who is involved with the production, posted photos of herself backstage with actress Sophie Turner and with Frank Dillane, who will play her husband, Boisie, who took her to life as an outlaw.

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With a script by Anna Symon (The Essex Serpent), the series’ proposal is, of course, to humanize Joan’s trajectory and will be located in the criminal underworld in London in the 1980s, which also guarantees an inspired soundtrack and well-designed looks in advance. typical of the time.

In England shaken by the economic crisis, Joan Hannington was the youngest of a family of six children and left school at the age of 13, without finishing her education and exposed to people like her first husband, Ray Pavey, a dangerous armed robber and 10 years older than her. It was from this union that Debbie was born when Joan was not yet 18 years old. When Ray was arrested, Joan found herself without a livelihood and in need, being forced to choose to give her daughter up for adoption to prevent the child from going hungry. Joan never fully recovered from the decision she made in desperation. So much so that her first foray into the criminal world was stealing a car to visit her daughter, but when Joan and Ray finally split, custody of Debbie was awarded to wealthy adoptive parents, leaving the criminal devastated.

To survive, Joan started scamming and ended up meeting Boisie Hannington, on the facade of an antique dealer, but actually, a high-class thief, who became her second husband. She was already involved with him when she was arrested, aged 24, for using a fake checkbook. After 30 months behind bars, Joan left prison and successfully applied to run a top jewelry store, which never checked her obviously fake references.

It was in this job that she realized an opportunity to get rich, especially after having access to the safe, she identified a failure in the security system of the place, where the surveillance cameras did not work. The way she found to get the diamonds out without getting caught was to – literally – swallow them. In her biography, it is estimated that this is how she stole around 20 diamond rings and exchanged around £400,000 worth of diamond bracelets for fakes.

Life with Boisie was ‘perfect’. They had a son, Benny, and together, they began to sell priceless works, and her husband ‘educated’ her to differentiate between fakes and genuine antiques, while she improved her skills in check fraud, changing her appearance and accent to not be recognized. Everything changed again for the worse when on an ordinary day Boisie left for work but never came back. Four days later, Joan discovered that he had been killed trying to burn down a house to claim insurance money.

Suddenly widowed at age 33, Joan decided to reshape her life. This ‘different’ trajectory is the heart of the plot that should only air at the end of 2023 or in 2024. It is still not possible to say on which platform here in Brazil. Let’s follow!

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