Ezra Franky Talks Netflix Series ‘Untamed’ and Upcoming Music

If you’re looking for a rising new star to have on your radar, then look no further. Ezra Franky is a Canadian actress-musician who is already making a name for herself with her latest role as Lucy Cook in the new Netflix series Untamed.

I recently spoke with Franky about her role on Untamed as well as her goals for her future career. (You can watch the full interview below.)

With this project marking her biggest role to date, Franky opened up about what drew her to such a complex character—and how it helped her reflect on creating in both solitude and collaboration.

“I think both (solitude and collaboration) are so valuable. Being a creative is so personal, but you will not survive if you try to do it all alone. With collaboration, it’s so important to see other people’s process and how their art reflects them, and then adopt what you need and reject what you don’t,” Franky said.

“But at the same time, being by yourself and knowing yourself well enough to trust your creativity is such a valuable experience and is really necessary. So it was nice to have both on this set.”

Throughout the season, Untamed dives into the investigation and unraveling of a brutal death that occurred at Yosemite National Park. With such an intense storyline, foreshadowing can play a big part in how viewers absorb the story.

Hoping to get her perspective, I asked Franky if there’s one subtle detail—either about her character or the show as a whole—she hopes viewers don’t miss (without giving too much away for anyone who hasn’t watched).

“There’s a really nice moment between Souter (Sam Neill) and Turner (Eric Bana) that, as the mystery is kind of unsolving and they’re finding little pieces of the puzzle, where Souter is finding a piece of evidence that ends up being really, really important three or four episodes later,” Franky explained.

“I don’t want to give anything too specific away, but when you catch it, you catch it and you’re like ‘oh, I see you.’”

A common fact in the entertainment world is that creatives are often their own biggest critics. Hoping to flip the narrative and give her a moment to celebrate her accomplishments, I asked Franky what she’s most proud of—both in her career so far and on Untamed.

Watch the full interview with Ezra Franky:

“I think my curiosity. I’m really glad that I was able to let it kind of blossom. This being so early on in my career, I think I just wanted to fully allow myself to be curious, to appreciate the expertise that was around me,” Franky said.

“Everybody was really in their element, thriving in what they knew how to do. So I took the chance, and I was always asking questions. I was so chatty on set. I was so curious about what projects people had worked on previously and what their experiences were like. I just could not stop asking questions.”

Along with being an actress, Franky is also busy building her career as a musician. For her, blending the two passions helps her continuously grow as both a person and an artist.

“A job in the acting industry is quite unpredictable; you are never guaranteed anything. I think that because I write music and I love playing music, it keeps me creative in the moments where I’m not actively working on another project,” Franky said.

“It’s really kind of a perfect marriage between staying creative and actively working towards another big project.”

With Franky set to release new music in the fall, it felt fitting to ask which one of her songs her character Lucy from Untamed would connect with the most.

“What I can tease about music in the fall is that I’m constantly writing new stuff. It’s nothing specific, but Lucy was incredibly inspiring as a person — as a character. So she will definitely be a muse in this upcoming album that I’m making,” Franky said.

“If she were to listen to my music, I just released an album a couple of weeks ago called Acoustish that is mostly acoustic songs, which are very folk and it’s very woodland-esque, which is super Lucy. Old Man of the Woods, I think, is the song that she would resonate most with.”

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Untamed Season 1 is now streaming on Netflix.

*Featured image credit: John Charrop

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