She’s a smooth criminal. “Game of Thrones” star Sophie Turner plays a jewel thief in her new show, “Joan” — and it’s not all fiction. Based on Joan Hannington’s memoir, “I Am What I Am: The True Story of Britain’s Most Notorious Jewel Thief,” the show first premiered on ITV in the UK in September.
In America, it premieres Oct. 2 on the CW (9 p.m.
) and on Dec. 5 on BritBox. The show is set in 1980s London, and it’s a rags-to-riches story following Joan (Turner), a woman in her 20s who is the caring mother of a 6-year-old daughter, Kelly (Mia Millichamp-Long), but she’s married to Gary (Nick Blood), a criminal.
When he goes on the run, she takes the chance to make a new life for herself and her daughter by becoming a jewel thief. Known as “the Godmother” of the diamond heist, she notoriously stole uncut diamonds from a jewelry store where she was working, and swallowed them. “Best bank in the world, is your tummy.
Best safety-deposit box invented,” Hannington wrote in her book. Turner, 28, told Harper’s Bazaar that she initially related to Joan as a fellow mother, since she had recently given birth to Delphine, her second child with her ex-husband, Joe Jonas, 35. “I was incredibly hormonal at the time and really feeling that fierce protectiveness of the new mother,” she told the outlet.
Turner married the musician in 2019 and welcomed daughters Willa, 3, and Delphine, 2 with him before finalizing their divorce in Sept. 2024 after a yearlo.