‘Finding Her Edge’ Showrunner Jeff Norton on Casting, Jane Austen Inspirations, and Plans for a Potential Season 2

After the hugely successful launch of Finding Her Edge, we recently caught up with the series’s showrunner to discuss his vision for the series, how it ‘found its edge’, and what a sequel season could look like.

In Finding Her Edge, we follow Adriana Russo (Madelyn Keys), a former competitive skater from a family with an esteemed history in ice skating. When her proud older sister, Elise (Alexandra Beaton), is injured in competition, Adriana decides to put the skates back on. But it’s not just for her own vanity. She needs to earn a sponsorship in order to save her esteemed family’s struggling ice rink. With her former partner — and lover — Freddie (Ollie Atkins) moving on to another partner, she ends up pretending to be in love with her new on-ice partner Brayden (Cale Ambrozic), if only to secure the all-important sponsorship. 

The series adapts the novel of the same name by Jennifer Iacopelli. It was brought to the screen by showrunner Jeff Norton, the man who helped bring Geek Girl to our screens. Check out our big interview with Norton below, where we discuss the creation of the show, the biggest talking points, and he outlines his vision for future seasons.

What’s On Netflix: Finding Her Edge has been out just over a week now. Early reception has been hugely positive. I loved it; everyone seems to be enjoying it. And the viewership is pretty amazing too. How do you feel about the early reception of the series?

Jeff Norton: It’s an amazing feeling because when you make a show, you actually do it in a bit of a bubble. You think you’re making something special, and you love it, and you care for it and nurture it. And then you send it out into the world, and you have no idea how it’s going to be received.

It’s been overwhelmingly positive. I think the thing that’s amazing for me is, even people who are not coming to the show because of figure skating, they can still enjoy it. Because for me, the show, really, it’s not about figure skating. The show is actually about love, both romantic love and familial love. And it just happens to be set in this exceptionally exciting world of elite figure skating.

WoN: There’s a bug Jane Austen Persuasion arc going on  — How did you go about developing that? Of course, it’s very present in the book. Did you build on that in the show?

JN: Yeah, very much so. I mean, what’s great about Jane Austen is that she’s really, you know, she set the prototypes for so many of the romantic dynamics and tropes that we enjoy today. The novel on which the show is based was inspired by Jane Austen’s Persuasion.

In Persuasion, you have the crumbling family estate, the old love, the new love interest, and the sister drama. So it’s all there. And one of the things that was really fun to do was put that in the show.

Hopefully, you see this in some of the little sequences — little Jane Austen Easter Eggs. We really wanted to pay homage to Jane Austen. We know that there are a lot of fans of her literature; there have been many adaptations of her books over the years. We wanted to give those fans something fun and interesting to look at.

Finding Her Edge: Season 1. (L-R) Alexandra Beaton as Elise Russo and Madelyn Keys as Adriana Russo in Finding Her Edge: Season 1. Cr. NETFLIX © 2025

WoN: You dive into a lot on the show: sports, romance, family drama. What were the core themes for you?

JN: I think for me, the biggest theme is love and finding love when things aren’t going well in your life.

One reason the show resonates is that the main characters are quite broken when we meet them. We meet these characters at a time in their lives when not everything is going particularly well.

Adriana has been off the ice for a couple of years, and she’s secretly missing it; the family fortunes are crumbling; Will is struggling; Brayden has just been dumped by his partner. And of course, Freddie returns to the place that dumped him. All of the emotions are so raw, but it’s really through love that these characters navigate and find their way not only to excel in their sport and their chosen pursuit, but probably more importantly, with each other.

And ultimately, of course, there is a romantic love triangle. But for me, the big element of love is the family dynamic and seeing the three sisters and Will finally reconciling that he can be a dad first and a coach second. Having those characters, the four of them come together on the ice — to me, that’s the ultimate arc of love in the show.

WoN: You’re well-acquainted with adaptations, notably working on Geek Girl. What are the challenges that you face when you bring the book to the screen?

Jeff Norton: I love adaptations from books;  the main reason I love them is that they provide a creative North Star for what the show should and could be. You’ve got something to work with where the characters are already formed. There’s a sense of story and plot. But the biggest challenge is that the characters are inside the author’s head, and television is a visual medium.

You have to dramatise what’s going on with your main characters. And you don’t have the luxury of telling — you have to show. And so, although in both Geek Girl and Finding Her Edge, I use a little bit of voiceover, more so in Geek Girl. Really, it’s about making sure that the audience can emote along with the characters without being able to have the device that a book gives you, which is literally to tell the reader what the character is thinking.

WoN: You really nailed the casting of this show. Everyone is perfect. How did you land on the cast?

JN: I’m incredibly proud of the casting. I wanted to have the absolute best actors. Then we would figure out how to deliver on the skating in the show. First and foremost, it was really important to have actors who could carry these roles. And then the second thing is I absolutely had a vision for what each of these characters should be like and how they should, how they should perform in the show.

I wanted to find the right actor for the right role, and that didn’t necessarily mean finding somebody who’s worked a lot or who was already famous or already had a following. Our casting director was incredibly diligent about casting an incredibly wide net.

We saw thousands and thousands of tapes and then narrowed it down over many months to find this amazing cast. And I’m incredibly proud that for many of them, this is really their first meaningful role. All of them have worked before, but by and large, certainly the younger cast members, this is the biggest thing they’ve ever done.

We were lucky, and a couple of the actors had been on longer-running shows: Alexandra Beaton had been on The Next Step for many seasons. And Millie Davis — who plays Riley — had been on Odd Squad. So those two were very used to set life.

But for Madelyn [Keys], who was number one on the call sheet, I mean, this was a big, big step up for her. And she came every single day completely prepared. She completely embodied the character and was able to shoot for 80 days straight. She was inalmost every scene. Knocked it out of the park.

Picture Credit: Netflix

WoN: The Winter Olympics come next month. Do you think that this show will give viewers a new perspective on the Olympics and figure skating? The timing of the release feels very convenient.

JN: It is convenient in the sense that I did very deliberately pitch the show autumn of ’24, about 18 months ago, with a vision that we could have a drama running alongside the nonfiction Winter Olympics.

But I think what I’m really proud of is that I’m hoping it’s opening up the sport, particularly of ice dancing, to a whole new audience. And one of the things that I love about figure skating and particularly ice dance is it’s one of the few sports that fuses artistry with athleticism.

I would challenge any Liverpool Football Club footballer to be able to perform on the pitch with the same level of beauty and artistry that we demand of our ice dancers.

It’s really a sport that fuses those two things. And I think that’s what makes it so captivating to watch, but it also allows for a lot more behind-the-scenes drama in terms of what goes into training for the sport.

WoN: Team Freddie or Team Brayden?

JN: I will be flippant in my answer and say that I’m Team Adriana. I want what’s best for her, but what I will say, and I know there’s been a lot of online questions about whether she made the right choice in what people on the internet love to call ‘Endgame,’ is you have to remember that this is still a very young character and we’re only meeting her for a few months of her life in this show.

If we’re lucky enough to have a second season, we will see how she evolves and how these romantic relationships evolve. But this is just simply where she’s got to at the end of about four months in story-time.

Finding Her Edge: Season 1. (L-R) Oliver “Olly” Atkins as Freddie O’Connell and Madelyn Keys as Adriana Russo in Finding Her Edge: Season 1. Cr. NETFLIX © 2025

WoN: If Finding Her Edge were to continue, what aspects of the world or the characters would you be most excited to explore further?

JN: We finished filming Finding Her Edge in Paris. We filmed a lot of it in Canada, and then we took the small team to Paris. And I literally started writing more on the plane ride home back in June.

I think for me, it’s really about the emotional lives of the characters and exploring that some of them have got what they want by the end of season two. But the interesting dramatic question is: is it what they need? That’s the element emotionally I want to explore. And then, practically speaking, we tee up at the end of season one that the Russo rink has been acquired by the rival rink, the Voltage Skating Academy. There’s an interesting dynamic to play with that as well. At some point, the Russo skaters are going to have to merge with the Voltage skaters. And I think there’s lots of friction to be mined there.

We thank Jeff Norton for his time. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Finding Her Edge season 1 is now streaming on Netflix.