Netflix announces new drama series with Hilary Swank

Grab the tissues. Netflix has just announced a new series that will likely make you shed a few tears. And hopefully not because it’s bad, but because it’s so good. And looking at the lead actress, I have confidence in that. It’s none other than Hilary Swank. Right, the Oscar-winning Hilary Swank, the actress from Boys Don’t Cry, that Hilary Swank. Who I can’t watch anymore for my emotional state… What a heavy film. The same goes for P.S. I Love You, because yes, Hilary Swank is in that too. And in Million Dollar Baby of course. Okay, it should be clear: Hilary Swank is a tear-jerker guarantee.

The series is called Away and is about… astronauts. Huh? Yes, really. That Hilary can do everything, huh. She plays Emma Green, who is married and has a teenage daughter. And is therefore an astronaut. She is in charge of an international space crew that has to go on ‘a dangerous mission’. Hmm, sounds promising. Personally, I always find films and series about space incredibly interesting, although I often end up having some sort of existential crisis. It’s often a hit or miss, because how are they going to portray space? Films like Interstellar (which I personally found really cool) still receive a lot of criticism for not being realistic enough. I wouldn’t know, my travel experience in space is quite minimal. I prefer to stay on planet Earth, actually.

According to the creators, Away is about ‘hope, humanity and how we need one another if we are to achieve impossible things’. Also worth mentioning is that the series is based on an article from Esquire, from 2014. So if you want to gain some background knowledge: you can read that article here. It’s a fairly long article, so I’ll summarize it a bit for you; it’s about a mission to go to Mars, carried out by astronaut Scott Kelly and his crew. He will be traveling to this other planet for a year straight. There’s a good chance that Scott Kelly has been transformed into Emma Green. Hopsakee, girl power. But the article is definitely worth reading if you have some time to spare.

Just a bit more about that girl power: Hilary Swank is also the executive producer of Away. Busy lady then. Apparently too busy to give us a release date for this series. There isn’t one yet, but I guess it will be available by the end of summer, beginning of autumn on our favorite streaming service. Don’t hold me to that, of course, but at least enough time to gain that background knowledge.