Why Jane Seymour Agreed to Star in Crime Thriller “Harry Wild” After Saying She'd 'Never Do a Series' Again (Exclusive)

The British actress previously led 'Dr. Quinn, Medicine Women' in the '90s, but tells PEOPLE she did the series "by accident"

Jane Seymour went wild for Harry Wild when she first read the script for her latest series.

“I read Harry Wild and I thought, ‘What a fabulous character,’” Seymour, 73, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “It was so intelligently written. I thought, ‘This is not a remake of anything. This is brand new. I've never seen this anywhere.’ And I really loved the soft-crime element of it. I loved the fact that I always think I'm smart enough to figure out who did it, but I could never figure out who did it.”

The British actress broke big thanks to ‘90s series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, which she only signed on to because her divorce from her second husband, David Flynn, left her $9 million in debt.

“I intended to never do a series ever,” she says. “I did the beginning of a series once and I saw what went on and I went, ‘Oh, no. Never.’ I did Dr. Quinn by accident. I was guaranteed it would never be a series. And of course, seven years later, it's still playing now.”

Related: Jane Seymour Says Women Over 50 'Just Hide Away and Expect Not to Be Listened to or Heard' (Exclusive)

Dr. Quinn fans might even get more of the family Western if Seymour and her former costar Joe Lando have their way.

“The fans are just begging for another Dr. Quinn, that's all they can ask me, ‘Will it come back?’” Seymour says. “I've got to find somebody who wants to make it. But yes, Joe and I, we'd love to.”

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On Harry Wild, Seymour plays a retired professor named Harriet (Harry for short) who falls into solving crimes with her teenage sidekick Fergus (Rohan Nedd). Seymour describes Harry and Fergus’s relationship as both “fabulous” and “very unusual.”

“It's nothing to do with romance or sexuality or anything like that,” she says. “It's just a real love and appreciation of two people. That is a unique chemistry we've never seen.”

Seymour admits to being a true crime fan herself.

“I do enjoy them because there's a beginning, middle and an end,” the Emmy winner says. “I really enjoy soft crime or cozy crime, I don't know what you call it. It's still a crime. Someone's dead, but there's humor in it and a lot of really interesting, fascinating, quirky characters.”

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The mother of six thinks Harry, as a former literature professor, may be “turning people onto reading” through the show — herself included.

“Since we've done Harry Wild, I find I'll actually pick up a book or look through the Audibles as I'm going to do my run and go, ‘Well, I might as well hear it while I'm running.’ I do double duty,” Seymour says. “And I think that's really important because the more you read, the more you are able to have your own opinion about what's going on in the world. So I like the idea that we're maybe sneaking a little bit of that in there, as we did with Dr. Quinn with history.”

Seymour says she typically opts to read biographies because, “I just love real stories.”

Reading a real story even led her to a thought for a future project, as Seymour decided to option Christy Scott Cashman’s book The Truth About Horses.

“That was a book that really blew me away, and I got the rights. I'm talking to people about doing it as either a film or a series,” Seymour explains.

Related: Jane Seymour Talks About Being ‘Unseen’ as She Ages, Says Men ‘Look Over My Head and Find the Nearest Man’ To Talk To

That marks just one of the many ideas Seymour has in the works.

“I go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning full of ideas,” she says. “If it's not going to work out, I am so over it, I'm onto the next thing. I do not hold onto, ‘Why me? Why not? What's wrong?’ Something better's around the corner. And so I very much live in the now.”

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Harry Wild airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on BBC America and Acorn TV.

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