‘A Small Light’ Cast Explain the Series’ New Angle to Anne Frank’s Story (VIDEO)
The Diary of Anne Frank, with all its hope, love, and teenage yearning, has long been essential reading. A Small Light, the latest miniseries from Nat Geo, takes a new angle on the story. It’s told through the eyes of charming and persistent Miep Gies (Bel Powley), the young secretary, and later friend, to Anne’s father, Otto (Liev Schreiber). Gies, along with other employees, helped hide the Franks and others from the Nazis for 761 days in a secret apartment above Otto’s Amsterdam offices.
“The title [of the series] comes from something she said, ‘Anyone, even an ordinary secretary or housewife or teenager, can turn on a small light in a dark room. She was adamant that she never be called a hero,” Powley tells us.
The series is buoyed by Powley’s energetic portrayal of the resolute Miep, who’s always thinking on her feet; early on, there’s a tense scene where she encourages Anne’s (Billie Boullet) older sister Margot (Ashley Brooke) to bluff her way through a Nazi checkpoint.
“Otto is aware of the risks for Miep. He’s really touched by the readiness of Miep. So many of us know this story, but we know it from the diaries. This is a very, very different story. Miep was someone Otto was very, very close to and eternally grateful to. They actually lived together for seven years after his family passed away in the camps,” says Schreiber.
Check out the video to hear more about the series, including the love story of Miep and her husband Jan (Joe Cole), who ultimately joined the Dutch resistance. “People then were cut from a different cloth, they just got on with it, especially these people,” Cole explains. “They represent a portion of society that were doing the unthinkable, risking their lives every single day to save as many Jewish people as they could.”
A Small Light, Series Premiere, Monday, May 1, Nat Geo and Disney+
