The actor praised the show's creator and executive producer Peter Craig for "honouring" her complex character

Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura lead the new Apple TV+ crime drama series Dope Thief (premiering March 14), based on the book by Dennis Tafoya. The first episode was directed by Ridley Scott.

Set in Philadelphia, friends Ray (Henry) and Manny (Moura) pose as DEA agents as part of a robbery scheme to take money from low-level drug dealers. But while this may have been a small-scale operation, one job changes everything.

Ray finds out that the woman who raised him, Theresa (Kate Mulgrew), needs $10,000, for what Ray believes are medical expenses, leading to Manny and Ray breaking their own rules for operating. Going outside their usual neighbourhood, the fake bust goes wrong when Jack (Gabriel Ebert), a real DEA agent undercover as a meth cook, is killed, and his partner Mina (Marin Ireland), posing as a meth addict, is severely injured, making her unable to speak.

"That was really fun as a challenge that I'd never had before as an actor, and that's all you want, is to ... be asked to do something you've never done before on camera, or on stage," Marin Ireland told Yahoo Canada about playing Mina while she can't speak.

"I definitely felt like it helped me really tap into this deep well of rage that she carries around with her, because in addition to how she was feeling about everything, ... to feel like you can't be understood properly, you can't express yourself properly, it doesn't have anywhere to go."

"And even down the road in this series, she's still sort of limited in that way, and I found ... it coming out of my body, physically, in different ways."

But Mina does eventually reclaim her voice, and while we won't spoil the whole series, we'll tease that this is a character that becomes critically important by the end of the series, which was particularly moving for Ireland.

"I've done jobs where you think that might happen, or they tell you they think that can happen, and then things take turns along the way as you're making them," Ireland said. "And before we started, [creator and executive producer Peter Craig] told me that would be the arc, and I just didn't know what that would look like, ultimately."

"Honestly, ... when I finally got the last two scripts, I started crying, because I felt like he was really honouring the character as he had described her to me, and he really was giving her what I felt was her due. Not mine as an actor, but the character's due. He really wanted her to get to some place really new and special, and to step into the centre of the story in a different way. And the fact that he gave that to her for real was very moving to me."

Going back to Mina shortly after she was injured, she also has this brother and sister-like relationship with her boss Mark, played by Amir Arison, the Assistant Senior Agent in Charge of the FBI's Philadelphia office. While they're technically "on the same side," they have different priorities and approaches to their jobs, getting on each other's nerves.

"Something really fun about working with Marin is, no matter how many times I run lines before I get to set, and no matter how many times I see her in my mind doing lines, it is not going to be that way," Arison said. "It is going to be super exciting and dynamic."

"I also felt like my character didn't think of herself on anybody's side except her own," Ireland added. "I feel like she felt like she was working for herself ... and wanting to please her own goals."

But while Mark operates in a very bureaucratic fashion, Arison also weaves in a great about of levity and comedic sarcasm to the character.

"It actually became abundantly clear in the beginning, because at my audition it was very straightforward, ... announcing the case," Arison shared. "But right before the audition I got a note [saying], 'Oh and make the character fun.'"

"I improvised some sarcastic jokes, because the character seemed to be quite dry, and then I got the part, so that was my starting point."

While there are a lot of options for crime dramas to watch, Dope Thief has an impactful emotional undercurrent, with absolutely mesmerizing performances, that make it stand out.