Ride or Die: Inside Prime Video’s Wildest Friendship, Secrets, and Assassin-Fueled Road Trip

What would you do if your best friend of nearly three decades was an assassin and never told you?

A) Break up over such a betrayal.
B) Cry and get drunk over the years of lies.
C) Join them.

Scroll to the bottom for the correct answer.

When high-octane espionage collides with sisterhood, you get Prime Video’s explosive action comedy, Ride or Die. The series stars Octavia Spencer and Hannah Waddingham as best friends who find their bond pushed to the brink when deep secrets, criminal intrigue, and lethal danger derail their lives. Balancing wit with adrenaline-fueled set pieces, Ride Or Die reframes the classic buddy-cop dynamic through the lens of messy, enduring female friendship.

At a recent Ride or Die panel discussion, creator and executive producer Tessa Coates joined showrunner Matt Miller (The Flight Attendant) alongside Spencer and Waddingham to peel back the curtain on the making of this high-stakes comedy.

Discuss the Zoom pitches about Ride or Die.

Tessa: I’ve been working on this project for a little while with Paramount.

It had always been this assassin best friends show. Along the way they said that Octavia Spencer would like to hear the pitch and she’d like to be considered for the role of Debbie. And I was like, ‘Sorry, you’re mumbling, because that sounded like you said Octavia Spencer.’

At that point, the show was still in its infancy, and by its nature, the assassin is the more exciting character. And because Octavia came on first, I rewrote it to be an American living in the UK. It became a very different show; very much a proper two-hander.

Octavia: As you guys know, whenever you hear pitches, your team always tells you that you don’t need to commit. Just hear the pitch, and let us know what you think afterwards.

And I’m like, ‘Guys, this is not my first rodeo. You don’t get engaged on your first date,’ which is exactly what I did. It was the best pitch I had ever heard in my entire career.

Tessa did the pitch as if it were a short story. And she did all the voices too. It was like, the night before Christmas, and you’re leaning in, and you think, ‘I don’t want this to end. It was that fascinating.’

Tessa: I live in the UK, so all the pitches were happening at midnight, 2 o’clock in the morning for me.

And I’d never met anybody from Zoom in person ever before. This had all been happening for two years. And I kept asking if people always do the voices.

I didn’t really know how to pitch it. Do I have to be a stand up?I think the pitch was to our favor because there was the whole of Episode One, pretty much as you saw it.

There was a vision for the whole season. I was selling with passion. I know that not everyone can do the voices or wants to do the voices, but… do the voices!

I felt so nervous because I’ve been working on this thing for two years, and the best I could hope for was that somebody would buy the script.

And I said, ‘It’s about two best friends and one of them is an assassin, and they’re gonna go on this adventure. It’s about two women in their 50s.’

Hannah:  I was overwhelmed by the Zoom. And I genuinely didn’t know what I was doing on it.

I said to them,  ‘Oh my God, that sounds amazing.’  I concur entirely that this pitch was the most phenomenal thing. It was a master class. I also got into bed and signed on straight away.

There was no jumping ahead with the characters for a second, there was no moment ever on camera where we didn’t know who they were, what they were, their rhythms, their flow, their ups and their downs.

It’s also a testament to Tessa’s voice and Matt and Tessa writing these amazing characters. How often are we ever going to get to play these women? It was a perfect, total, and utter symbiosis.

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Octavia Spencer, Hannah Waddingham, Tessa Coates, Matt Miller. Photo courtesy of January Images

Talk about the comedic tone of the show

Matt: I worked on The Flight Attendant with Kaley Cuoco, a wonderful comedian, but also a wonderful dramatic actor. The tone is equal parts humor, drama, and action.

We had the privilege of writing Ride or Die without shooting it. So we were able to take our time, get all the eight scripts ready, and also knowing who was going to play Judith and Debbie.

We could write to their strengths. We were able to write it with what we imagined were their rhythms. Tessa writes in a very specific voice that worked really well for them.

In addition to the two of them, for the other characters, you imagine who might play them. We would put pictures up on the wall of our dream casting. And for the role of the director, we just put up Bill Nye. He agreed.

I think it’s a testament to the material and to the show that Tessa created, that the first choice for the three most important roles, all three first choices said yes. And that never happens.

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How did you approach playing assassins?

Hannah: I had to do all the stunts because I wouldn’t have felt right otherwise. Since she was a 15-year-old girl, I had to feel the discomfort that Judith did.

When female assassins are on the screen and when men write them, they just say, ‘She’s the best in the world, but what they really mean is she’s hot.’

You’ve got to believe in their friendship. You’ve got to believe in Debbie and David’s marriage. You’ve got to believe that Judith’s an assassin. If you don’t believe, then the whole thing is going to fall apart.

That’s what I mean about the discomfort and the rawness of playing her. I had to be uncomfortable every day.

Octavia: I was challenged physically and mentally.

This was interesting because two of the most important relationships in her life turned out to be false in her mind.

So I had to do a lot of psychological examinations of their characters, what attracted them to Debbie, and why she had such a blind eye. She’s obviously very smart. She’s not a woman who’s going to have one pulled over on her.

There was something that I had to contend with every day. There was nothing that Debbie was enduring that was fun or funny. And it’s a comedy. I can’t worry about selling a joke. I need to be, and exist in the space that is true for her.

The biggest revelation was that I thought Debbie and I were similar. And in some regards, we are. But I’m a hardline loyalist with my friends.

Once you lose trust, it’s hard to go back. I kept trying to say, ‘What is keeping this relationship on the rails?’ So it was dealing with all of that emotionality.

You know I can’t drive. So it was like being on roller skates and trying to think. But it was wonderful unpacking it all.

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Tessa Coates & Matt Miller. Phot courtesy of Matt Miller

What did Hannah and Octavia learn from each other?

Octavia: I realize that the number one and the number two characters are the heart of the set, you have to show up for each other, and you have to physically be present for six months of filming. That is a demanding schedule.

Hannah also had her child there. But it was really about being open to what was needed to do the job which was trust and professionalism. It was a very unique and challenging experience.

Hannah: When you actually sit with what you need to achieve to honor Tessa’s work, that is where the real work starts. You could easily get into bed with somebody who is as established as Octavia, and she could do what she has done at this extraordinarily deserved level.

What Octavia did was reach in again into Judith, and I felt it all the time. I was very aware of the dilemma that she had sitting between the David character and the Judith of it all.

And whilst I had those mental and physical burdens as Judith in Whiptail, I was acutely aware all the time of what Octavia was doing and the dance to find those characters. I genuinely wouldn’t have wanted to do with anyone else because they were beasts of characters to play.

Watch trailer here

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Answer: C

by Staff Writer

From our in-house editorial team.