Hear
One of the most positive and unexpected aspects of the rapid global expansion of streaming It is the possibility that viewers have of watching programs from all over the world that before the new television era they would not have even known existed. And to that novelty, in the case of fictions, the “discovery” of new actors is added that is worth knowing. Two of the most recent and shining examples are Harriet Herbig-Matten and Damian Hardung, the young protagonists of Maxton Hallthe successful new Prime Video series which became an immediate phenomenon for the platform. Based on the trilogy of young adult romantic novels written by the author Mona Kasten, the fiction could have been recorded in Hollywood, England or South Korea, but the truth is that it is German, like the writer and the actors who They play Ruby and James, the central characters of the plot.
In any case, the story takes place in an elite secondary school located in some suburb of London, an imaginary space that gives the story the air of fantasy it needs. As well as The kissing boothanother romantic youth hit from streaming, In this case of Netflix, inspired by a literary trilogy, it constructed its representation of North American adolescents, inspired by the fictions that its British author had consumed as a viewer, in the case of Maxton Hall, the British lifestyle and customs on screen are poorly rooted in reality. A narrative operation that works very well in this case: after all, it is a modern fairy tale in which The prince is the one who needs to be rescued by a sensible, hard-working commoner with more interests in life than him.
Of course, much of the success of the six-episode series that has remained since its premiere in early May at the top of Prime Video worldwide -and it already has a second season confirmed-, it is due to its protagonists, two young actors who went from being recognized in their country to having the global public trying to pronounce their surnames correctly and, above all, learn more about them. Viewers in Germany have known both of them since they were teenagers. Both Herbig-Matten, born in Munich in 2003, and Hardung (Cologne, 1998) began acting as children in high-profile projects: in the case of the actress, her first role was in the film Das Pubertier, a comedy in which she played a 14-year-old girl, the same age she was at the time. The performer had been on film sets all her life: her mother had worked in the audiovisual industry since before she was born and was the one who understood that far from being interested in her academic experience, unlike the character of her in Maxton Hallwhat Harriet wanted was to act.
Thus, after his film debut he appeared at the casting for the film series Bibi and Tina, based on a successful saga of German children’s literature, and was chosen to play the friendly and adventurous Tina, a role that made her well known in her country and gave her her first glimpse of international recognition, as a television version of the films is available on Prime Video worldwide. On the way to more adult roles and projects, At the age of 18, the actress received a very tempting offer that would keep her in high school fiction for a while longer: with success assured at least in Europe, where Kasten’s novels have been a sales phenomenon for years, become Ruby to Maxton Hall it turned out to be the right step for your career. Although the actress did not anticipate – no one did – the enormous interest that the story generated throughout the world and the curiosity that her private life aroused in viewers who a month before the premiere of the series did not even know of the existence of she.
In the case of his castmate, the impact on his popularity was even more significant: Hardung I already knew the effects of appearing in a series available on a streaming platform. streaming, but his experience as part of the cast of How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast)the Netflix fiction, did not prepare him for the frenzy that his interpretation of the handsome, arrogant, troubled and – secretly – sensitive James Beaufort on the spectators. It must be said, the majority of the public Maxton Hall is feminine and Hardung’s photogenicity, his mop of blonde hair and the sculpted abs that he exhibits in almost all the scenes of the fiction, made him into the boyfriend of the Internet model 2024 as his colleagues Noah Centineo (To all the boys I fell in love withNetflix) and Jacob Elordi (The kissing booth, Euphoria).
The 25-year-old actor, like his castmate, has been working in film and TV since childhood. Along that path he went from playing small roles in TV movies without much impact until he got his big opportunity with the German adaptation of the Spanish series. Red Bracelets, in which he played one of the young patients in the oncology unit at a children’s hospital. That role that Hardung played for three seasons and a film prequel got him good reviews and great job opportunities such as participating in the miniseries The name of the rose (2019, available on Movistar Play), based on the novel by Umberto Eco in which he shared the lead role with John Turturro. The Italian-German co-production gave him training for large-scale TV and even inspired him to take a year to study acting in New York. An experience that he surely took advantage of when he received the proposal to join the cast of How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast), for Netflix, a showcase to the world that was only the beginning of his international career. Now with Maxton Hall become a thing, it’s only a matter of time before Hollywood comes to your door. Meanwhile, the actor is already preparing to record the second season of the romance and to answer uncomfortable questions about his private life and about the tenor of his relationship with his partner behind the camera, the most complete test of the brand new popularity of him.
