'Harlots' season 3: Ash Hunter and Alfie Allen's love for each other translates into easy chemistry between the Pincher brothers on-screen
Hulu's 'Harlots' is one of the most important, entertaining shows despite being a period drama, and that is mostly thanks to the female-driven storylines. With a central theme of warring whorehouses run by strong, independent, crafty women, the show sees a lot of women on-screen and behind it. This season, however, breaking the mold, so to speak, are two brothers who are looking to make their mark in 1763 London with their own brothel.
Played by Ash Hunter and Alfie Allen, the Pincher brothers are definitely bad for Charlotte's business, but their actual personalities and whether or not we need to hate them right away is not clear yet. We do know that Isaac, played by Allen, and Hal, played by Hunter, have genuine love for each other, having gone through some difficult times together - what they are, we will learn when season 3 of 'Harlots' premieres on July 10.
"The relationship between Isaac and Hal is so genuine... Hal is the older brother and kind of the grounding Force, but on ‘Harlots,’ nothing is ever as it seems. Alfie’s the restless one. He is the wild card," teases Hunter, telling MEA World Wide (MEAWW) how it was easy to replicate the genuine love the two felt for each other on screen. "We met on set and the next day he was at my place and we were drinking whiskey for eight hours to get to know everything about each other. We just had a really, really good time and then allowed the other relationships to happen on set."
"They may have gone through this adversity that is explained in the backstory where they both have the same dad but different mothers, them growing up together and even going to America, all of this stuff," he says, adding that building that brotherly relationship with Alfie was probably one of the easiest parts of the job. "We were just like, ‘I love you. You love me? Great. Let's do this,'" he narrates.
His character also has a very tender and loving relationship with the fan-favorite Emily Lacey, played perfectly by Holli Dempsey, who Hunter has known for over a decade. "She's actually one of the best friends of one of my exes and luckily it was one of the most amicable splits that has ever happened in the world. To get to create that kind of this relationship with someone you've known for so long… it really, really helped us build it and it's kind of weird because how do you differentiate it from making money and making love," he elaborates.
Theirs is one of those rare relationships on the show where sex is not a business and is just an extension of their love and respect for each other. "They do such a brilliant job of making that difference seen because you see how different when Hal is with her, and when he is not. Emily has always been a fan-favorite as well. So I think they knew that they have to use it in order to make the relationship believable. You can't mess with Emily Lacey," he says adding how the writers did a great job of showing that difference. "You can really separate sex from love in that time and in an industry which saw 60 percent of women become prostitutes and saw sex as just business."
He says that that relationship too was easy to build up because of his longstanding friendship with Dempsey. Meanwhile, Hunter had to dig deep on why Hal was so grounded.
"Why does he need to be so level-headed. Is it because he knows there is something else inside him potentially lurking? Because he does have anger in him. Maybe he's the dangerous one? Who knows?" He voiced aloud the questions about Hal, adding how the potential answers to those questions allow you to build the character, who he hopes will inspire audiences to understand his journey and think about how they would react if they had to go through his life experiences.
"It shows that you can go through all this hardship and still have a massive heart and still want to do what is best," he says, adding, "Sometimes even the best intentions don't always reap the nicest results or the best results and I just want people to be able to actually go [what would I do] if I was put in that position."
Hunter appears as Hal Pincher in season 3 premiere of 'Harlots', which premieres on July 10, 2019.