At this year’s Monte-Carlo Television Festival, the star of Sherlock and Daughter spoke with disarming honesty about the unusual road that led her to Amelia, the fearless and determined heroine she now embodies. Blu Hunt recalled how she had signed onto the project only for it to be paused for a year, left in limbo until, just as she was about to commit to another series, the producers called to say the show was back on and David Thewlis had joined as Sherlock. That sealed her fate: “As soon as I heard David Thewlis, I thought—okay, this is it. Forget the other show.” What kept her tied to the project during that long wait was Amelia herself. The character, she explained, is sweet, heroic, and fun, with fight scenes, horses, costumes, and all the allure of Victorian England. More importantly, the role allowed her to step into a universe as iconic as Sherlock Holmes and expand it in a playful way. “It’s not like rewriting history—Sherlock is already a fictional world. Introducing Amelia just felt fresh.” Fascinated by the Victorian era—she admits to bingeing YouTube videos on the subject—she nevertheless realized that Amelia couldn’t be researched in traditional terms. “There’s never been a character like her. I had to start from scratch.” Growing up, her image of Sherlock was Robert Downey Jr. in the blockbuster films, but working alongside David Thewlis changed everything. “He’s my favorite Sherlock now. Honestly. He makes the show what it is. Without him, I don’t think it would have legs.” To her, Sherlock Holmes isn’t just a detective but a cultural archetype, the template for complicated male leads across film and television, from Don Draper to Tony Soprano, and returning to him in a period piece is like returning to the source. For all its mystery, the show is also about family, about the turbulent love and resentment between parents and children. “Everyone who’s had parents can relate to it. That cycle of admiration, disappointment, rejection, and rediscovery—that’s Amelia and Sherlock.” She admitted that Amelia changes profoundly across the season, starting naïve and ending more reserved, colder, perhaps even a bit arrogant, realizing she is more like Sherlock than she would want to admit. The character’s American and Indigenous roots, too, add something unique. Amelia asks questions and breaks social conventions in ways Sherlock cannot, opening up new paths for discovery. For the actress, embodying her was surreal: “I never thought I’d be in Ireland, in a corset, pretending to live in Victorian England.” Working with Thewlis was a revelation, their acting styles reflecting their characters—his meticulous, hers looser and instinctive—until they found a rhythm of collaboration. Away from Baker Street, she has been consumed by her own project, Replay, an indie drama co-written with her fiancé, filmmaker Jason Lester. Shot in Macedonia and partly inspired by her own life after X-Men, the film was entirely self-financed with her earnings from Sherlock and Daughter. “They say you shouldn’t self-finance, but I wanted total control.” She not only stars in the film but has taken on editing duties, spending months locked in a small room for fifteen hours a day, before emerging in Monaco to talk about both projects. The film, which also features her friend Peter Vack, becomes increasingly meta as it unfolds. When asked how much of herself she sees in Amelia, she smiled: “She’s really just another version of me. I don’t follow rules either. If I think something’s right, I’ll do it. For women especially, confidence is often mistaken for arrogance. Amelia faces that too.” Her fondest memories from set were the intimate dialogue-heavy scenes with Thewlis, including one impossibly long line she struggled to master until she finally nailed it in a single take. Less fond, she joked, was horseback riding—“I was terrible.” For now, she is focused on finishing Replay and waiting to see if Sherlock and Daughter will return for a second season. “I only want to do projects that mean something to me. And this show does. I love it.” Standing in Monte Carlo, reflecting on Amelia’s journey and her own, she seemed every bit the determined heroine she portrays—unafraid of rules, hungry for stories worth telling, and ready for whatever mystery comes next.