Jodie Comer / Free Guy
Life can’t get much better for British actress Jodie Comer. Her striking performance as Villanelle on Killing Eve has turned the relatively unheralded Liverpool native into a major new star. This year she’s going to appear in two major Hollywood films – FREE GUY, a video game thriller co-starring Ryan Reynolds, and Ridley Scott’s THE LAST DUEL, with Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Adam Driver.
In the meantime, TV audiences are eagerly awaiting the release of Season 3 of Killing Eve which sees Comer return to the role of a mesmerising, enigmatic female assassin. One of the most interesting aspects about Comer’s sudden celebrity has been the odd reactions people have when they meet her in person.
“[People] are surprised that I’m nice,” Comer observes. “They also tell me that they kind of like Villanelle despite some of things she does…[and] I’m like, ‘Good. I like that conflict that you’re experiencing when you’re watching television.’ It’s good to make people feel something, and she definitely seems to do that.”
In the upcoming Season 3 of Killing Eve, Comer has hinted that audiences will be treated to a possibly kinder, gentler Villanelle, psychopathic tendencies and occupation as an assassin notwithstanding:
“I’m anxious to explore other sides to her…The audience love what they love about her, but it’s been nice to show a different side to that. Maybe a little bit of vulnerability.”
Also on tap for Comer fans is Free Guy, in which she plays a dual role as a gamer and as the avatar “Molotov Girl” who is a player inside a video game who is thrown into the mix with Ryan Reynolds’ character, a bank teller who discovers that he is a player inside a video game which is about to be retired.
The role marks the next step up the Hollywood ladder for Comer who last September won the Emmy for best actress for her outstanding work on Killing Eve. The recognition caught her off guard. “It hasn’t quite sunken in yet,” Comer said. “People have been so kind and generous and it’s nice when people celebrate you.”