“They can expect a totally new Sherlock”: Blu Hunt and Dougray Scott on Sherlock & Daughter

Sherlock & Daughter introduces a new complication to the detective’s life in the form of Amelia Rojas (Blu Hunt), a young American who arrives in London believing he may be her father. As she seeks to build a relationship with Sherlock Holmes (David Thewlis), his investigation into the Red Thread leads to a truce with Moriarty (Dougray Scott), who has his own concerns with his formerly estranged son.

Ahead of the show’s release on HBO Max, Hunt and Scott spoke with The Upcoming about the father-child relationships at the heart of the series and how they each found a way into their characters.

Hi Blu and Dougray, it’s lovely to speak with you both. I’m Christina from The Upcoming, and I’d love to start by asking what audiences can expect from Sherlock & Daughter.

Blu Hunt: I think they can expect a totally new Sherlock, but one that’s still very true to the source material and everything that Sherlock is. It’s got a lot of heart now, and a new spirit. I think it’s fun and exciting and dark and sweet.

Dougray Scott: I think it’s different because of the parallels between Sherlock’s father-daughter relationship with Amelia and Moriarty’s relationship with his son. I’ve never seen that before, so it brings an emotional heart to the show that I don’t think has really been explored before. You see the parallels of the two fathers trying to figure out their relationships with their children, and there’s an emotional centre to it that is really quite interesting. Aside from the cases that Sherlock and Amelia are investigating, you also have Moriarty, who’s been in prison for many years and knows quite a bit about what Sherlock has been involved in and the investigation into the Red Thread. So I think it’s a different dynamic, a different approach and a different set of eyes through which to look at the world of Sherlock Holmes.

Could you tell us a little about your characters – Amelia and this version of Moriarty?

BH: Amelia is a completely new addition to the Sherlock universe. I don’t think there’s ever quite been a character like her. Maybe there is, but I can’t think of one off the top of my head – a character like Amelia in this time period, in this exact setting and location, let alone within the Sherlock universe. She’s just arrived from America, looking for the man she hopes is her long-lost father, Sherlock Holmes. Of course, she’s a little spunky, but I think it goes deeper than that. There’s a lot of emotion there. She’s just experienced a lot of trauma that she’s trying to get through over the course of the season. She’s trying to heal and adapt to an entirely new world, a new way of living and new people, while also trying to prove herself, solve a crime and, most importantly, find out if Sherlock is her dad or not. She wants to see if they connect and whether he’s someone she can trust, someone who will hopefully take care of her – not that she needs to be taken care of. I just think she’s a really exciting and fun character, and I love playing Amelia.

DS: Moriarty? Well, he’s very, very bad. He’s a bad, bad man, and he enjoys being bad. Some people who are sociopathic deny it and say they’re misunderstood. I don’t think he does that at all. I think he’s like, “Yeah, this is who I am.” But I think his one Achilles’ heel is his son, because that relationship is obviously very new. He needs Sherlock Holmes to help him regain the fortune that’s out of his reach while he’s in prison, and Sherlock Holmes needs Moriarty to try to figure out what’s happening with the Red Thread. And, of course, there’s the complexity of their relationships with Amelia and Moriarty’s son, so there’s a lot going on in his world. Ultimately, he reaches a truce with Sherlock to get his help with what he needs to achieve. But at the same time, he’s thinking, “Can I get away with killing him when the moment’s right? And how would I kill him?” He has a complete and utter hatred for Sherlock Holmes because of the run-ins they’ve had over the years. But he’s an enjoyable villain, I think.

Dougray, how did you prepare to bring your own interpretation to such a well-known character as Moriarty?

DS: Weirdly, I actually got my son, who was unemployed at the time, to help. I said, “Just find me everything you can about Moriarty in literature.” So he collated this book for me, and I read everything there was about Moriarty. It’s a bit like when you read a script and try to figure out who the character is. What I do, anyway, is write down everything the other characters say about my character, along with what the script and its descriptive text say about them. When you read it back, you build up a picture, which is sometimes accurate and sometimes inaccurate, because the other characters within a story don’t always understand the person they’re dealing with. So you have to take it all in and be quite selective about what you read about your character. There’s not a huge amount about Moriarty in literature, to be honest, but there’s enough to go on. Then, of course, you just lean into the enjoyable psychopath that he is. Obviously, I have that within me, so I just draw on my own personality. I’m kidding about that part.

And Blu, without that literary history to draw on, what helped you find your way into a wholly original character like Amelia?

BH: Well, I realised I’d never read any Sherlock Holmes before, so I got all the books. Honestly, I only read the first story. I realised I don’t really like detective-type mysteries – I hate true crime. They stress me out. I’m like, “I just want to know. I’ll just Google what happens at the end. I can’t do this.” So I tried reading Sherlock, but I realised it wasn’t necessarily that helpful, especially because I knew David Thewlis was going to play Sherlock how he played it. Reading the stories wouldn’t necessarily clue me into anything – I don’t think that’s always helpful. But I did a lot of research into the time period to understand what was happening historically. I actually love this period, and I think people are fascinated by Victorian England and what was happening in the wider world. There was so much change, all happening so quickly. I also did a lot of research into what was happening back in America, particularly for Indigenous people at the time. I felt I knew a lot about what was happening historically for Indigenous people much earlier and much later, but I realised this was a period I didn’t actually know much about. So I did a lot of research into that, although it’s quite hard to find information about this exact period and the specific location Amelia comes from. I tried to focus more on that because that’s where she’s coming from, and once she gets to London, it’s all so new. I think just letting everything feel new was the most helpful thing I could do.

Christina Yang

Sherlock & Daughter is released on HBO Max on 5^th November 2026.

Watch the trailer for Sherlock & Daughter here: