[SPOILER ALERT:  This story contains spoilers from Silo, Season 3.]

When 8 DAYS caught up with Jessica Henwick over a video call from New York, she was still reeling from England’s heartbreaking 2-1 loss to Argentina in the FIFA World Cup semi-final.

“That was really depressing. That really sucked,” the British-Singaporean actress sighed. “It’s a shame, but proud of the team to get so far. You just hope that next time [they win]…”

“I watched it with Charlie Cox — who plays Daredevil — and he is such a huge football fan,” she recalled. “In those last few minutes, he just went totally silent next to me on the couch and I could feel all hope leaving his body.”(If it's any consolation, England beat France 6-4 to finish third.)

But we didn’t catch up with Henwick to chat about football. No siree, we have something more pressing to discuss: The end of the world — on screen, that is. (Then again, looking at how things are....okay, let's not go there.) 

Henwick joins Season 3 of Apple TV’s acclaimed dystopian drama as investigative journalist Helen Drew, who was first glimpsed at the tail end of Season 2. Her arc takes place in the “Before Times”— before civilisation gets blown up into smithereens — where she and a congressman (the Fear Street trilogy’s Ashley Zukerman) uncover the origins of the underground shelters.

Brace yourself as the past (or is the present?) collides with the future. 

As it turns out, though, Henwick didn’t need much convincing to join the world of Silo— she’d been fascinated by doomsday bunkers long before the series came along. She also updates us on that Singapore-set project she and George Young (The Pupil) had written.

8 DAYS: You’ve appeared in Love and Monsters and The Matrix Resurrections. And now, with Silo, do you consider this your post-apocalypse trilogy?

JESSICA HENWICK: The show for sure, but honestly, the storyline that I'm in is more like a political thriller. I don't know if that quite... I don't know if I've completed the trilogy. I still owe something there.

Your character, Helen Drew, is an investigative journalist. As someone who’s been interviewed countless times, what was it like to be on the other end asking uncomfortable questions?

It was such a pleasure, actually. That was something that attracted me to the role. I have so much respect for journalists. Helen really believes in giving power back to the people and the will of the many. She values honesty and truth more than anything. She's willing to put her name on the line, she's willing to put her health and safety on the line. I really respected that because honestly, I don't know if I have the guts to do what she does in the show.

Before Silo, you were in Vladimir, in which you also play a writer. Has playing back-to-back writer roles made you want to write even more?

Oh, I’m desperate to write. I have the itch right now. I need to get back home, and I just want to sit down in a room with my laptop and just create. I’m definitely feeling it.

Helen carries a notepad with her. Is that your own notepad or a prop?

No, that's a prop. I used to carry a notepad. I don't do it anymore. Sometimes I carry a pen and then I'll find something to write on, whether it's a napkin at a restaurant or something.

The only place I have a notepad left is my bedside table because I often wake up in the middle of the night with either a dream or a very detailed idea for something... or even just, “I have to remember to buy this tomorrow.” So I always have a pen and paper there.

Just like that Seinfeld episode in where Jerry wakes up in the middle of night to write down a joke he dreamt of on a pad on his bedstand, only to realised the next morning he'd written gibberish.

Oh, yeah. See, that’s the worst: when you wake up and you go, “I should have written it down; I had the best idea,” and then it just slips away.

The last time we spoke, you said you prefer knowing the whole story before signing onto a project because it helps you understand a character’s journey. That was why you chose The Matrix Resurrections over Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Silo is built around a long-form mystery. How much of Helen’s arc did you know in advance, and how did that knowledge shape the way you approach the role?

I knew all of Helen’s arc, which is the beauty of a show that was guaranteed to end in Season 4. It helped to know how far I needed to take the relationships with the other characters, but because the show is a mystery, of course I had to act like I had no idea I was investigating the end of the world. Helen just thinks she’s investigating some corruption or cover-ups; she has no idea how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Silo has a stacked cast. Does it  — I wouldn’t say pissed off  — bother you that you’re on the same show as Rebecca Ferguson and Common, but don’t share any scenes with them.

Yes, it definitely was a little sad. Also, as a fan of the show, I love the silo. I love that world — people living underground, what they wear, what they eat, how they keep the air circulating.

I’m a big survivalism fan and doomsday bunkers have always fascinated me. So it was a bit annoying to be on the show and not get to do any of that stuff. I'm just in cars and cafes in Washington.

But I got to visit the set. I made sure on my first day I said, “I want the full tour!” They built the staircase and it's the biggest set I’ve ever been on. Truly, bigger than Star Wars. Amazing production design. I got to explore and sort of live vicariously through them.

Group effort: Jessica Henwick — with her co-stars (from left) Ashley Zukerman, Rebecca Ferguson, creator and executive producer Graham Yost, Common, and Alexandria Riley — at the photo call for Season 3 of Silo at Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills on June 15, 2026. (Photo: Eric Charbonneau/Apple TV via Getty Images)

Warning: Spoilers ahead! Approach with caution! 

You didn’t share scenes with Rebecca and Common but did have a few with Colin Hanks. Lately, he’s been playing bad guys, like in Nobody 2. He turns up in an upcoming episode as a shady tech mogul. What was it like acting opposite a Colin Hanks so different from the nice-guy Colin Hanks we’re used to seeing?

He’s so perfect for the role. Not saying that he’s a douchebag, but he plays it really well. He’s so likeable and gregarious and charming in real life. He loves to sing between takes.

I remember the first day he came to set. We’d all been filming for months, so we quite bonded. I always feel bad for an actor who’s in that [situation]. But just before our very first take — I hope he doesn’t mind me sharing this — he stepped aside and said, “You don’t care about any of these people.” And action!

It was such a perfect mentality to help him get into the role. I think his character sees everyone else just as obstacles and numbers. I don’t think he’s able to empathise with that many people in his life anymore. He’s so far removed, he just lives on another planet.

What makes his character scary is how he reduces everything to numbers and algorithms. And these are the kind of people controlling the world.

It is definitely a very prescient storyline. Considering this show takes place so far into the future and is classified as hard sci-fi, it’s uncanny how much of the show feels very real and current.

There are even references to Iran. Was it surreal seeing those scenes play out against what’s happening in the real world?

I mean, insane, yeah. We shot that two years ago. It just makes me want to ask [creator] Graham [Yost] to buy my lottery tickets. It’s definitely bizarre and scary. Is it possible that something like the Silo TV series could happen one day? I don’t have the answers. I don’t know.

I don’t want the answers!

I know. I don’t want the answer. It’s too scary!

Viva la revolución: While Helen (Jessica Henwick) investigates a conspiracy in the past, engineer-turned-sheriff-turned-outcast Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson, with Common in the background) returns to Silo 18 in the future, igniting political unrest and forcing The Algorithm's hand. (Photo: Apple TV)

Silo is part of wave of post-apocalyptic stories about life underground. There’s also Paradise and Fallout. I think we’re all gravitated to these narratives because we’d come out from a pandemic, where we were quarantined and isolated. Why do you think audiences are so fascinated by such stories?

I think at the core there’s a creator, a builder, in all of us. What is the appeal of The Sims? You get to build a house and design it exactly the way you want.

For me, my obsession with doomsday bunkers has always been going, “Okay, if this happens, where would I hole up? What are the entrances and exits? How would I stay mentally sane? How would I entertain myself?”

The idea of building a world from scratch has always been really, really appealing. That’s what entices me to that genre.

Have you actually planned out your apocalypse survival strategy?

When I was a kid, I literally used to, when I should have been paying attention in class, go into this flow state where I would daydream about, ‘Okay, say a zombie attack happens right now. I'm in my school. What do I do?”

I would think, “What would I do within 24 hours? What would I do within six months? What would I do within a year?”

And you always have to have entertainment, otherwise there’s no point. Why stay alive then? I’d always have books and films and music and activities.

One Silo character is seen reading Moby Dick. What’s your go-to book?

Honestly, the book that I’m reading now over and over… three times I've read it in two years, which is a lot for me, because I don’t normally do re-reads. It’s Love’s Executioner by Irvin Yalom. I usually read fiction, but this is a non-fiction book. It’s by a very famous psychotherapist in New York, and it deals with, I think, the six toughest cases over his 40-year career. It deals a lot with existentialism and our fear of death, and that’s really speaking to me at this moment. I think a lot of people would benefit from reading this book.

What drew you to that book in the first place?

The [state of the] world. I think just hitting your 30s, you do start to go, “Okay, what am I doing here? Like, why am I here?” I think that is a very common thing amongst this age group.

“When I was a kid... I’d daydream, ‘Okay, say a zombie attack happens right now. What do I do?’”

— Jessica Henwick on her doomsday fantasies 

Helen is an analog kind of person. She drives a 30-year-old car, lives in an apartment that looks like a museum or the boutique hotel lobby. I wonder if there’s a prop or piece of the wardrobe that helped you build her character?John C Reilly once said in an interview that he starts by looking at his character’s shoes…

I’m not normally a costume person, but with Helen, I really wanted to make a homage to Gregory Peck. I wanted her to have these wide, loose, floaty, heavy draped materials – blouses, pants, belts. This interesting mix of masculine and feminine, made from very heavy materials. And that for me, putting that on every day, it was like a uniform.

I normally make a playlist for my characters, but with Helen, I didn’t because she’s so work-focused. I don’t think she listens to music. I don’t think she keeps up to date with the charts. I honestly think she doesn’t carve out the time to sit and relax. Her mind’s always going.

What’s a typical Jessica Henwick playlist like?

Um, God, it's all over the place right now. I have a very eclectic music taste. Um, let’s see — I hope this doesn’t close down this video (she scrolls her phone) — I’m going to see what’s the last song I played. Oh! The last song I played was ‘I’ve Been Everywhere’ by Johnny Cash!

And speaking of music, a certain famous musician, whose name shall not be spoken, pops up in one particular episode.

Yes, I did meet him on the set of Silo and he performed. Normally, when you block a scene so the crew knows where to put the cameras, and maybe half the crew watches. On the day he had to perform, suddenly hundreds of crew members suddenly needed to watch the blocking rehearsal.

It was basically a private audience with him and it was wonderful. He’s a lovely man and his family is so sweet — and very talented, obviously. I think Graham had been trying to get him onto the show for a while, so he managed to squeeze him in there.

Deep dive: To prepare for investigative reporter Helen Drew, Jessica Henwick revisited classic journalism thrillers such as Alan J. Pakula’s All the President’s Men (1976) and Sydney Pollack’s Absence of Malice (1981). “Even though Silo is a sci-fi show, if you look at our storyline in isolation, it feels more like a political thriller from the ’70s,” says Henwick. “It’s about the undercurrents of how much truth is too much truth. Is there such a thing as protecting people by hiding the truth from them?” (Photos: Apple TV, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Bros. Pictures)

I first spoke to you in 2015. At that point, you were just known as Nymeria Sand in Game of Thrones. Since then, it’s really been exciting to see you in all these different kinds of roles. It’s a challenge to play catch up with your works: Vladimir, Bus Girl —your BAFTA-nominated short, which you also wrote and directed — Cuckoo, How to Make a Killing…no, wait, I still haven’t seen the one you did with Julie Garner…that sounds too intense for me.

Thank you. Oh, The Royal Hotel! Yeah, that's a great film, I really loved that. Well, yeah, it's crazy. The film is based on a documentary, Hotel Coolgardie, and it's very, very similar to the real-life story. I love things that feel close to the bone and close to reality — that's like my preference.

Between then and now, what’s something your younger self believed about acting that you’ve completely changed your mind about? And do you still watch Game of Thrones or its spin-offs?

I haven’t managed to catch the spin-offs, though, I hear Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is incredible. I think when I was very young, I probably believed in the myth of “making it”. The overnight star very rarely happens overnight!

“We have all the scripts written... I hope that one day I meet someone from Mediacorp and we can make it.”

       — Henwick on the Singapore-set passion project, she co-wrote with friend and actor George Young

Last time we spoke, you said that you and George Young wanted to make a Singapore TV series together. Whatever happened to it?

We wrote an entire series — I think six episodes. We couldn’t get it to MediaCorp. The person helping us just wouldn’t give it to them because he didn’t think it would work. I don’t have direct contact with [Mediacorp], and so George and I just kind of give up.

But we have all the scripts written and I think they’re really funny. I hope that one day I meet someone from MediaCorp and we can make it.

We’ve been tempted to just turn it into a film and shoot it ourselves for no money. George’s busy, I'm running all over the place, so it hasn’t been at the top of our list.

But we do want to get back to Singapore and make the show together.

I’ll get the word out. Hello, I work at Mediacorp! Maybe you should hand it to me, and I’ll show it to the commissioners?

I know! I know! Yeah, it has legs, it’s a great idea! [That person] wouldn’t give it to them because he was like, “I don’t think this works on MediaCorp.” Look, the show’s not a procedural. It’s a weird, very strange comedy. I don’t know. Maybe it's not the right place for it.

If the show does get made, who would you cast?

Oh, I mean, it’s the show is literally a Who’s Who of Singapore! It's full of people that I’m familiar with their work, or whom George has worked with: Rebecca Lim, Adrian Pang, Bobby Tonelli… Yeah, there are names that escape me now, but in every episode, the goal was to have one to two celebrity cameos. It’s kind of like The Studio. But the idea was that it’s on a much smaller scale, featuring all MediaCorp actors.

Damn it! Let’s make this happen. This will be in my headline…

I love it! We may just be able to publicise this enough that someone finally says, “Just give her the money so she’ll stop talking about this!”

What’s next for you?

Obviously, Silo is rolling out now for the next month and a bit, and we have Season 4 coming out, I’m assuming, next year. And then I have two other films. I’m hoping one will come out at the very end of this year, and the other one will come out sort of summer next year.

Besides that, I don’t know. I'm totally open. I’m, as I said, writing again. I have a TV series that I’m writing, and hopefully one of these things brings me back to Singapore. It’s been years! I’ve not been back since... Oh, my gosh, it may have been when I came back for the Game of Thrones press tour.

That might be the last time I was there. That’s far too long! I’m trying to think now. I went to Hong Kong and I’ve been to other places, but I haven’t made it back to Singapore or Malaysia, actually. Yeah, overdue.

Silo Season 3 is now streaming on Apple TV, with new episodes every Friday.

Hero pic: Eric Charbonneau/Apple TV via Getty Images, Apple TV