October 7th, 2024 
Jackson Murphy 
Lara Croft has been played by Oscar winners Angelina Jolie and Alicia Vikander in movies. She’s also an iconic video game heroine. Now she’s the focus of a new hand-drawn animated series, with the voice of Hayley Atwell, in Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft. It premieres this Thursday October 10th on Netflix. Showrunner, writer and EP Tasha Huo joins me for this Animation Scoop Q&A. (This interview was edited for length and clarity.)
Jackson Murphy: How did it feel, as a Lara Croft ‘superfan’ (what you wrote on your socials), to take-on this new show?
Tasha Huo: Incredible. An actual dream come true. It’s been awesome to be able to take all the things I’ve loved about Lara, throw her in a show and play with her in the world.
JM: What speaks to you the most about Lara as an adventurer and a strong lead character?
TH: There’s so many things, Jackson. (laughs) How impressive she is at always getting up no matter what — emotionally, physically, everything.
JM: We go on an emotional journey with Lara. What’s the arc we’re going to see over these eight episodes?
TH: Trying to get Lara to move away from looking at the past, which is something she’s always done in the video games, particularly the newer games, and moving her into someone who’s forward-thinking, looking into the future and trying to figure out who she is without the past that’s been weighing her down. It’s bringing her into the classic Lara that we remember.
JM: Do you really dissect the video games and put yourself as a player to examine them — in this transition to television?
TH: I really see it as a coming of age story for her — to come out of the “Survivor” series and say, “Okay, who am I now?” And the answer is: you’re going to become the classic-era Lara eventually, so let’s move you in that direction.
JM: There’s always a strong adventure factor with Lara Croft. How did you want to make sure you delivered when it comes to that?
TH: I’m a huge action/adventure fan. Indiana Jones made me want to be an archaeologist when I was growing up. [Action/adventure] has to be in every single episode. It makes the show really exciting and exactly what you want it to be. That was super key for me.
JM: And combining it with hand-drawn animation: cool chases, underwater sequences, a lot of movement.
TH: Powerhouse [Animation] probably hates me a lot because we were really challenging ourselves to push Lara in all these directions but they knew what they were getting into. They were all fans of the game going in and they knew we couldn’t just have a Lara who is sedentary. She has to travel every episode. She has to do incredible stunts every episode.
JM: The voice of Lara Croft is Hayley Atwell (Marvel’s Agent Carter). How was it collaborating with her?
TH: I’ve always loved Hayley. [Her as] Agent Carter was fantastic. She balances being very graceful with being funny and an absolute action icon. She was everything that Lara Croft already was, and then upon meeting her you realize that’s even truer. She does so many of her own stunts, in “Mission: Impossible”, for instance. Every time we’d say, “Hey, you’re jumping out of a plane, so you’d probably sound like this”, she’d say, “No, no, no, I got this. I’ve jumped out of a plane.” (laughs) She is Lara Croft in real life, so we couldn’t have picked a better Tomb Raider.
JM: From a global perspective, we go around the world. That’s one of the things we love about Lara Croft. And we see the architecture of many buildings. Do you go literally in the history books to take a look at what you want to showcase visually?
TH: Yes. Every location is very tediously researched, from script to all the references the background artists are using. We really wanted to create a sense of place. As a history nerd, as a person with a history degree, it was very important for me that we stayed very true to these places.
JM: So this show was made for you.
TH: I feel that way, Jackson! It feels like kismet! (laughs)
JM: That’s fantastic. Who else do you think is a legend?
TH: A legend? Indiana Jones is a legend. Ethan Hunt is a legend.
JM: And in your animation / entertainment world?
TH: This is sort of my first foray into animation but I actually became such a huge fan and wanted to do this for a job because of Disney movies. “Mulan” in particular was a movie where I was like, “Holy crap, this is what you can do with animation? I wanna do that thing!” It’s very cool to full-circle see that playing out here.
JM: Is there a possibility where it’s like a multiverse of Lara Crofts and Angelina and Alicia join Hayley? Would you be open to that?
TH: (laughs) Jackson, you’ve just given me an idea for season four! Maybe there’s some kind of time loop and we get our Marvel universe! (laughs)
JM: Yeah! Hayley’s used to that.
TH: Exactly!
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