HANNAH MARKS

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“I try to find the things about the characters that are most like myself, because that’s the way I think they’ll be the most honest and real.” It’s for that reason alone that each role the actress Hannah Marks takes on has an added depth and magnetism tangible every time she appears. Through her deep passion for film and her natural inclination towards eccentric characters, she’s quickly become a rising star in the indie world. But it’s the authentic personality she injects into all of her characters that makes her a strong presence on screen, and which she’s now bringing to a wider audience with her latest project, the new show Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, premiering on BBC America this weekend.

Marks grew up in Los Angeles and was exposed to the film industry at a young age by her actress mother. She performed in community theater at six years old, and started auditioning when she was only eleven while being homeschooled. “I think that’s a little too young, there’s too much puberty happening,” she admits. “I was following my dreams, so it was really fun. It was so exciting. There wasn’t so much nerves or anxiety about it back then because I was just a kid. And I’m glad that I had the passion that I had, but sometimes I wish I had started at eighteen or a more adult age, just so I got to know myself first.”

As it turned out, film was the passion she would find herself most drawn to, but not before a brief experiment with what she jokingly calls ‘normalcy.’ “I went to tenth grade and tried to do the normal kid thing but it didn’t work out for me,” she laughs. “I really hated school, I hated waking up early. I would fall asleep in my classes—it was just not for me. It was awful how much bullying there was. There’s all these cliques. It’s not the ideal circumstance to go to high school for tenth grade when you’ve been homeschooled before. It was very much a shock.“

In lieu of a traditional upbringing, Marks was able to live vicariously through her adolescent roles in film and on television. “I always wished that I went to prom and had graduation and all of those normal experiences that I never had,” she says. “I’ve gotten to go to prom I think four times on TV, so it kind of feels like I got to go to prom—except each time I was pregnant at prom on TV.”

She plays a high school student again in the film Slash, out in December, about two teens figuring out their identities through their mutual passion for erotic fan fiction. Her character Julia is a rebel, but Marks says she managed to find some commonality: “I was a rebel in that I liked to wear way too much eyeliner—I wasn’t an actual rebel. I just liked reading my books and watching my movies, but she mimics my personality in that she’s really opinionated. I liked how outspoken she was.” It’s a coming-of-age story fit for a new generation, focusing on two people who learn to accept their ambiguous attractions, and does away with explicit labels that young people are desperate to avoid. “The whole point in that movie is that you don’t need a label, and something that I definitely got from that film is that I realized I don’t need to fit in any kind of box,” Marks says. “And that film helped me explore that as a person.”

Marks says that she’s always felt a mutual attraction with the independent film world. “Honestly, I think those roles come to me. That’s kind of just my vibe, whether I’m aware of it or not,” she muses. “That’s what I gravitate towards, but we’ll see what happens. Maybe I’ll do something super straightforward soon, I don’t know what the future holds.”

Just as Julia is obsessed with fan fiction, Marks herself is a fervent film buff, one who can cite Seventies French films as well as modern auteurs like Gregg Araki, whom she considers an influence. Her passion extends behind the camera as well, having just completed her second short film, which she has submitted to Sundance. “I love movies, that’s my whole life. I would love to slowly transition behind the scenes,” she explains. “I’m twenty-three now. I’ve never been a fan of the idea of having to be an aging actress. What women deal with in this industry is so terrible and so unjust, and so frustrating and so sexist that I don’t want to be a part of that. I would just like to tell stories without having my face in it.”

While the continued discussion of women in film is beneficial to everyone, for a young and outspoken woman in the industry, it’s unavoidable, and one Marks is proud to be taking part in. “So much is changing so fast. With streaming, you can watch things instantly online; you can also make a movie with your iPhone like Tangerine, which was so awesome,” she says. “I love Tangerine. It just proves that now you don’t have to wait around for opportunities. You can be creatively fulfilled and take matters into your own hands, you don’t have to wait for anyone to give you a ‘yes.’ I really feel strongly that the world is changing and we can make our own art.”

Nonetheless, for Marks the art comes first, and she’s cautious about shifting too much of her attention to social issues instead of focusing on her own narratives. “It’s just bizarre, like the little tiny things that are in everyday life that people probably don’t even notice, but they bother me and I want them to change,” she says about being ignored when she goes to meetings with her male writing partner. “I do think it’s a fine line because I want to address issues, but on the other hand I just want it to be from personal experience. I don’t try to take myself too seriously, I don’t want to write about things that are important but I have no familiarity with. I don’t think that’s honest storytelling.”

In Dirk Gently, based on the detective series by Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams, Marks was again drawn to a quirky character in an already surreal universe. Viewers are thrust into an offbeat world that takes dark motifs and plays them in a humorous way, falling tonally between Men in Black and Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock. “The script was one of the best pilot scripts I’ve ever read,” Marks says. “[Creator] Max Landis is a terrific writer, there’s no one out there like him. He is one of the rare people that can write story structure and dialogue and character equally well. He’s so good at genre-mashing. Our show has fantasy, it has magic, but it also has comedy, it has drama, it has heart. It’s a detective show but also deals with family issues—and it also has animals in lead roles. He incorporates so much and makes it still feel like the same show, so I was personally blown away by it.”

In the show, the down-on-his-luck Todd (Elijah Wood) woefully gets caught up in one of “holistic detective” Dirk Gently’s (Samuel Barnett) cases, eventually becoming his de facto assistant while figuring out a way to take care of his sister Amanda, played by Marks. Amanda is afflicted with a disease that causes her to have hallucinations that feel real—like being on fire. “A huge thing for me was trying to avoid self-pity because I think that’s an unattractive quality to watch in a character,” Marks explains. “I was like, how do I play this character who is completely housebound and has this horrible disease without seeming like, ‘oh, poor me.’ A lot of that was trying to deflect by being sarcastic or making jokes, or when I talk about the disease, I play it pretty lighthearted because I feel like a lot of times when someone is sick, they’re just stating it as facts because it’s their everyday.”

Through the first few episodes, it quickly becomes apparent how intense the role is, and Marks does her best to give an accurate performance. “I did research on what all of these things would feel like,” she explains. “In the [second] episode, I’m freezing, so I took a bath in a bunch of ice, just to get that feeling.” Of course, when there were limitations, she did what she does best: “In the third episode, I light on fire, and I obviously can’t prepare for that in any way, so I watched Backdraft and From Dusk Till Dawn, and all these movies that have people lighting on fire in them. I also watched some real teenagers on YouTube that were idiots and lit themselves on fire and jumped in pools.”

It’s that sort of dedication to accuracy and her craft that sets Marks apart, no matter how out-there the situation. But she manages all the while to make every role feel completely her own. “I want to be as authentic as possible, so I try and take a lot of my own opinion and personality and put it in the film. As much as I like to be real, I also like to have personality, I like to be characters,” Marks elucidates as she reflects on all of these roles. “I don’t want to be the girl next door that just stares and doesn’t say anything. I like having a voice, and I like bringing my voice to it.” Her willingness to eschew reductive roles in favor of smart and interesting ones has helped her develop a strong perspective that guides her behind the camera as much as it does in front of it. “I actually have been pretty lucky in that way, because I’m building a career with the personalities I want to portray.”

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency premieres October 22 on BBC America. Slash is out December 9.