The Iris Affair - Niamh Algar (Iris) Interview

Iris Nixon has a brilliant mind – and she will need to use that to the best of her ability to get through the cat-and-mouse chase of The Iris Affair.

With a keen sense of right and wrong, Iris’s morals are tested after taking on a job by Cameron Beck, whose keen interest in deciphering code connected to the mysterious ‘Charlie Big Potatoes’ sends Iris on the run and putting her life on the line.

Speaking ahead of the series launch, Niamh Algar opens up about what lies ahead for Iris, the secrets she may be hiding, and what it was like learning about theoretical science necessary for the plot…

Iris is a total outlier — Neil Cross described her as having ‘a brain the size of a planet,’ and that really fits. She’s brilliant, a fugitive, can hack any system, and actually relaxes by solving insanely difficult puzzles. In some ways, she functions almost like a computer, copying, storing, and processing only what she considers important, precise, and logical.

She’s obsessive, manipulative, and unpredictable — spotting people’s weaknesses and using them to get what she needs. Dangerous, unique, and entirely her own — not motivated by romance or defined by trauma, but shaped by her intelligence and curiosity. Meeting her as she’s recruited by Cameron Beck [Tom Hollander] is just the beginning of discovering who she really is.”

Cameron is this tech billionaire who’s basically built what could be the world’s most powerful computer. Iris is brought in to work it — but it’s locked behind codes created by its inventor, Jensen Lind, who’s now catatonic after what seems like a breakdown. He won’t give up the codes, so she’s handed his diary to figure it out.

Iris has this irresistible compulsion to solve problems. It’s like a need — a part of her that won’t let her rest until she cracks it. Problem-solving isn’t just what she does, it’s who she is. And then there’s Cameron. He and Iris have this brilliantly unique dynamic. He starts as her boss, but quickly becomes her worst enemy, turning their world into an explosive, high-stakes game of hide and seek — full of tension, danger, and unpredictability.

Iris’s backstory is deliberately mysterious — we, as the audience, meet her exactly as she is in the moment: on the run, sharp, and perfectly in control. But the way she moves, reinvents herself, and stays ahead of danger hints that this has been her life from a very young age.

She’s constantly had to adapt, survive, and rely only on herself. In fact, she’s a code-switcher, someone who changes the way she presents herself depending on the situation — an analogy Neil Cross really liked when I first met him. If you were to describe her, she’s like Will from Good Will Hunting, Jason Bourne, and Tom Ripley rolled into one — brilliant, resourceful, and unflinchingly independent.

She has no family she mentions, doesn’t allow herself to get close to anyone, and sees human connection as secondary. That is, until Cameron comes along. He’s the first person she genuinely enjoys spending time with, and the first to challenge the walls she’s built around herself.

I think she’s empathetic, but in her own way. At the start, she doesn’t respond emotionally like you’d expect, and that’s deliberate — when she does start to show feeling, it’s her reconnecting with emotion on her own terms.

She channels hurt into solving problems, and her compulsion to fix things leaves little room for friendships or romance. She’s original in so many ways, and that challenges the audience’s perception of her. But ultimately, people can empathize with her drive, her intelligence, and the way she navigates the world entirely on her own terms.

Iris’s relationship with Cameron is fascinating because it’s completely new for her. He starts as her boss, but quickly becomes so much more — the first person she genuinely enjoys spending time with. Cameron challenges her in ways no one else does, and for the first time, she allows herself to connect on a human level.

Their dynamic is unpredictable, tense, and sometimes explosive — it’s a mix of trust, rivalry, and a game of wits. He brings out sides of her that no one else can, and that makes their relationship thrilling and essential to the story.

Iris sees something of herself in Joy — a younger version of someone who’s grown up without real care or love. Joy is essentially a token child in a wealthy household that doesn’t really notice her, and Iris has always felt like she didn’t belong in any system or structure. When she reinvents herself as Joy’s tutor, she becomes the first person who’s completely honest with her — even if it’s not what a teen might want to hear.

Iris talks to her almost like a super- intelligent older sister, guiding her, challenging her, and cutting through the nonsense. When Cameron kidnaps Joy to get to Iris, it becomes a real test for her. It’s high stakes, but it also highlights how much she cares for Joy in her own way, and how protective and resourceful she can be when someone finally matters to her.

Getting my head around Iris’s theoretical science was a challenge because she thinks in such a precise, highly analytical way. She has a multitude of ‘monologues’ running at once — the problem she’s solving and Iris herself solving it in real time. On my first week in Italy, I saw the drawings of “Charlie Big Potatoes”. Lara, our production designer, and Neil had mapped out how a computer could take over a facility — what it could shut down, manipulate — and created this incredible Bond-style set. Seeing it in reality made it click. The writing is brilliant, and I had to fully trust Neil’s vision. It’s all grounded in research, entirely plausible, and completely interconnected, which made it easy to invest in Iris’s world — honestly, it could probably function somewhere in the world right now.

The Iris Affair is a sun-drenched, high stakes game of Cat & Mouse. The show follows Iris, a brilliant fugitive, as she’s pulled into a world of high-tech danger, forcing her to outthink enemies, solve impossible problems, and confront the rare connections she allows herself.

I’ve loved playing Iris — she’s so many characters in one, constantly shifting and reinventing herself, and making all those ‘sub-Iris’ personas feel real was a huge challenge. Then there’s the adrenaline side: gunfights, jumping off boats, leaping from buildings, blowing up things — and racing a Ferrari at high speed through the mountains in Italy was the absolute highlight.

On top of all that, working with Tom Hollander has been one of the absolute highlights of this project — a true master of his craft. Playing Iris has been exhilarating, terrifying, and completely thrilling all at once — and that’s exactly what it feels like to be her.