EXCLUSIVE: Jasmine Jobson has said that Netflix‘s Top Boy spin-off series about her character Jaq Lawrence will be an “insane” addition to the world created by Ronan Bennett.
Netflix announced last week that Jobson would reprise her role for the six-part series, which will be a sequel to Top Boy after the drama concluded in 2023.
Working titled Jaq, the show will shoot next year and is part of a wider expansion of the Top Boy universe, with Barry Keoghan returning as Irish mobster Jonny McGee in prequel Jonny Boy.
In an interview with Deadline, Jobson said Jaq will pick up five years after the events of the final season of Top Boy, in which Jaq tried to get out of the Summerhouse drug game.
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The character is living in a seaside town when someone close to her goes missing, pulling her back into a world she attempted to escape.
“She’s definitely going down a very crazy rabbit hole, and I can’t confirm or deny who, what, or whatever’s going on, but all I can say is that it is going to be insane,” Jobson said.
“She’s in a completely different environment. So when all of this is kicking off, it’s really drawing her back into a whole heap of craziness that I don’t know if she’s 100% prepared for. She’s just got to figure it out. We know she’s good at figuring things out.”
Jobson won a BAFTA TV Award for her portrayal of Jaq. Soon after collecting the prize, she told Deadline that she was not prepared to relinquish the character and was open to a spin-off series.
Two years on and Jobson’s ambition has become a reality. She has worked closely with writer Ryan Calais Cameron to create Jaq and will serve as an executive producer on the drama.
Cameron has written episodes of Boarders and The Flatshare, but Jaq will be his biggest screen project to date. Jobson “fell in love with his writing” after watching his play Afronauts.
“He’s very passionate about Jaq’s character arc and storyline. The ideas he was bringing to the table [were amazing]. It’s very raw, edgy, current, and relevant,” Jobson said. “Once we started putting things together, it just looked so great. It was undeniable.”
The actress continued: “Jaq is my baby. There’s a lot of myself that I put into Jaq, like her loyalty and compassion. So when Top Boy ended, naturally I was like, ‘No guys, we’ve got so many more stories to tell.’”
Jaq’s executive producers are Charles Steel and Alasdair Flind for Cowboy Films; Bennett for Easter Partisan Films; Calais Cameron and Jobson; Aubrey Drake Graham and Adel “Future” Nur for DreamCrew Entertainment; Maverick Carter and Jamal Henderson for SpringHill Studios, a Fulwell Entertainment label.
Next up for Jobson is In The Shadows, her boxing biopic feature about Ramla Ali, who made history as the first non-track and field athlete to compete for Somalia in the Olympic Games. The pic is part of the London Film Festival line-up.
Jobson will also return in Season 2 of Paramount+ series MobLand as Zosia. Season 3 is yet to be officially greenlit, but a writers’ room has opened for the Tom Hardy show.
Asked if she will be part of MobLand Season 3, Jobson said: “I would love to, but we’ll see. I mean, I haven’t seen any scripts or anything like that yet, so we’re just waiting and seeing.”
