Bono’s daughter Eve Hewson has landed the lead role in Apple TV+’s ‘Flora and Son.’ The director, John Carney, recently spoke to Yahoo Entertainment and shared that when he offered the role to Eve, he wasn’t banking on her vocals. He said:
“From the very beginning, she [Eve Hewson] was like, ‘I’m not going to be singing like my dad, you know that, don’t you?’ And I was like, ‘Perfect.’ Because she’s not supposed to be. I never wanted this to be about, ‘Oh, little Flora from the flats sings, and [suddenly] she’s Aretha Franklin. I don’t want to do that story. We’ve seen that story a million times…”
Carney also said that his main incentive was to focus more on Flora as a songwriter and her journey with her son. He added:
“[This] is about what she’s writing and the journey she’s going through and how she hears her son. So she has a songwriter facility maybe in time, but I wanted to ground the character, make it feel very real, and not have her suddenly clutching a bunch of awards saying, ‘Oh, thank you.'”
John said that he is aware that people will be watching to hear Eve’s vocals since she is Bono’s daughter. The director continued:
“So I think Eve sensed that this part needed that humor and that reality, and she told me from the word go, ‘I don’t really play the guitar. I don’t sing like my dad, and is that OK?’ Of course, people are going to be watching it going, ‘Oh, let’s see. It’s Bono’s daughter. Let’s see.'”
However, John revealed that the audience will be pleasantly surprised by Eve’s acting that they won’t focus on her vocals or her guitar playing. He expressed:
“But she distracted you from it. She was like, ‘Don’t look at that. Look over here. Look at me acting.’ And I think that’s brilliant the way she does that. You never go, ‘Oh, she’s not really singing very well.’ You go, ‘This is great.'”
You can read John Carney’s interview with Yahoo Entertainment here and watch ‘Flora and Son’s trailer below.