Tomb Raider Chronicles - TASHA HUO TALKS TOMB RAIDER THE LEGEND OF LARA CROFT AND FUTURE OF SHOW

In the latest episode of the Act Two Podcast, Tasha Huo and Josh Hallman discuss how the ideas behind the second series of Tomb Raider The Legend of Lara Croft came together, as well as the possibility of a third series. The Tomb Raider anime is produced by Crystal Dynamics, Story Kitchen, Netflix Animation, Powerhouse Animation Studios, and Legendary Television and available to watch exclusively on Netflix.

Discussing her time commitments for the show, Tasha Huo says: "Technically, the writing takes the least amount of time. The writing is ten weeks. It was very short to do two seasons, we just went back-to-back. There was no break between writing season one and season two. And then the rest is character design, layouts, background design, and then animatics, all the different drafts of the animatics. And then it goes overseas to animation, and then it comes back and now we're doing the animated takes, and the various drafts of those. That's what takes the bulk of the time."

"When we sat down for season two, after season one was done, we the writers, our research and homework for the first week was to come to the room every day with new ideas of what season two could even be about. With Tomb Raider and Lara Croft, part of it is the adventure. What countries do we want to go to, what mythologies do we want to explore. What is that history, archaeology thing that we want to dive into. What's interesting to us, " Tasha Huo continues.

"And so we originally were going to do something with Native American mythology and religion and it's so interesting because I feel like we never get to see that on screen, and Lara has never really dove into that world. There was this push and pull of, well, it's better to represent this culture on screen than it is to not do it, because I don't feel qualified to do it. But the more we started talking about it, the more we realised we couldn't do justice to that story. There were no Native Americans in our room and it was something that I wanted to really do well. We put that one to the side, maybe in the future that's something that we'll do, and hire native writers to help us with that."

"So instead, we went with Orisha mythology, which is in West Africa, it was so interesting. I knew nothing about it before Troy brought in this idea of doing Orisha. So Lara goes to Africa, and it's so cool because I also don't think we've been there really in the Tomb Raider games before. Especially in this way. We've been to Egypt, but West Africa and the Yoruba culture, we have not. And the more we researched the Yoruba culture, the more we realised this diaspora that had happened, where people from West Africa, during the slave trade, found themselves everywhere in the world and they brought their Yoruba culture with them, which allowed this kind of international road trip show that is what you would expect from Tomb Raider. She goes to all kinds of different locations in her adventures."

"So that was the mythology we wanted to dig into, and then the story we wanted to dig into was, Lara Croft is really good at doing things by herself, because she's a video game character. That's what she does. We talked a lot about how in modern times seeing Lara Croft, this rich, white British woman going to other cultures and taking their things or helping them when they can't help themselves felt very problematic. So this story is about Lara learning to work with a team, learning that she doesn't always have all the answers, especially when she goes into someone else's world and culture, and that asking for help from people who are from that culture is actually extremely valuable. And so the lesson [for Lara] of season one was, 'OK I don't have to be by myself all the time,' and the lesson of season two is, 'OK, now that I know that, what does that look like for me.' And that became the character story for season two."

Finally, on the topic of a third series of Tomb Raider The Legend of Lara Croft, Tasha Huo says: "There will be a season three if people watch the show. There's so much more story to tell, so it would be really fun to tell it."

The final series follows Lara Croft as she delves into the mysteries of Orisha history. As she uncovers long-buried secrets, she comes up against a wealthy and enigmatic adversary determined to claim the masks for her own ends. During her journey, Lara discovers the formidable power contained within these ancient artefacts.