Upload: Allegra Edwards Talks Ingrid’s “Slow Burn” Journey

Amazon’s new series Upload takes the idea of the afterlife and gives it a near-future twist. In the series, people can choose to have their consciousness “uploaded” into a virtual afterlife where they can “live” beyond their death — for a price. The series sees a young man, Nathan (Robbie Amell), uploaded into the luxurious Lakeview community after a freak accident with his girlfriend Ingrid (Allegra Edwards) footing the bill though it soon becomes apparent that their relationship isn’t perfect…and there’s more to Ingrid than meets the eye. For Edwards, that slow burn for the character was one of her favorite things about the series.

Warning: spoilers for the first season of Upload below.

Speaking with ComicBook.com, Edwards likened the slow reveal of Ingrid’s humanity to breadcrumbs sprinkled throughout the show’s season.

“I feel like we get breadcrumbs of Ingrid’s humanity and it’s just a shame that it takes sort of a slow burn to get there, but in a way that makes it even more delicious is just the unveiling of who she actually is in there, and what she’s struggling with,” Edwards said. “And I have to say, it was really fun for me to get a new script every couple of weeks and find out what Ingrid was going to say or do next. Because like I said, her humanity was being revealed and it was a treat for me to get to see how they were going to unleash that bit by bit.”

Edwards’ Ingrid wasn’t the only character whose true self was revealed as the season progressed, either. Amell’s Nathan also develops, though there’s a point where both Nathan and viewers are confronted with an examination of his past deeds that shows just how far the character has come.

“I will say you find out some stuff about him towards the end of the season, some mistakes that he made, but the redeeming quality about, or the only redeeming side of that is the reasons he was doing them. His family doesn’t have a lot of money and I would do anything for my mom, but he did kind of the wrong things for not the right reasons, but for reasons you can kind of understand,” Amell said. “But he meets somebody like Nora and you quickly realize that he didn’t really have any real friends in the real world. And in her he sees somebody who kind of teaches him about life and what it is to care for other people, and you know, not just about himself. And I just find that Nora is so charming and you see all of the things that she’s trying to do for her dad and it’s just, it’s an easy character to get behind and to learn from.”

For Edwards, the development of both characters and what it means for both of them is one of the more interesting elements of the series.

“I also think it’s interesting how Nathan has such a great arc in this season and grows so much as a person that the person she may have fell in love with initially is kind of not who he is now,” Edwards said. “He’s grown, he’s changed. And I actually think Ingrid has, too, but just like relationships in real life, we want to cling to what we knew before and maybe not accept that people have grown and changed in the process.”

Upload is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.