Killing Eves Jodie Comer Is Ready to Creep You Out Now

The first time Jodie Comer met Phoebe Waller-Bridge wasnt when she auditioned for a role on her BBC America show Killing Eve, but rather months before, at a party for the BAFTAs. It was hours into the night—the glamour was coming undone, the booze was flowing, and Comer and Waller-Bridge were both drunk and making frothy party chatter.

“I didnt know nottin about Killing Eve,” Comer recalls in her thick Liverpudlian accent. “Then my audition came along and I was like”—her voice drops into a dramatic whisper—“Oh my God, I was so drunk that night. This is really awkward.”

Comer, who previously starred in the mini-series The White Princess and Thirteen, was up for the role of Villanelle, a sociopathic Russian assassin who taunts an M.I.5 agent (the titular Eve, played by Sandra Oh) and carries out kills all over Europe. She got the part about a week after her second audition and immediately set about building the character with Waller-Bridge, who cheerfully remembered her from that drunken BAFTAs night. The two sat down at a restaurant and worked on Villanelles timeline: where was she born? Who is her family? Why does she live by herself in Paris? Why does she kill?

“Anyone who overheard at the table next to us would be like, What is going on over there?” Comer says.

Villanelles introduction at the beginning of the first episode is a memorable one. Shes sitting in an ice-cream parlor, staring curiously at a little girl the next table over. She flicks the girl a smile, but gets ignored. Then, she watches as the girl grants a gregarious smile to the cashier, whos grinning and winking with abandon. Villanelle mimics him, plastering a big, cold smile on her face. Its become a competition to her. Will this smile unlock reciprocation? She gets her answer in an instant: yes. The little girl smiles back, broad and cheery. Villanelle is pleased with herself. As she heads out the door, she claims her victory by knocking the girls ice cream off the table and into her lap.

“That scene, to me, is just a setup of the uncertainty of the whole series—and of her,” Comer says. Villanelle is an utter sociopath, an observer of human behavior only insofar as she can mimic it to get what she wants. The little girl made her work too hard for reciprocation, so she had to be punished. Comer theorizes that her character likes to sit around watching Big Brother, practicing her creepy smile when she can. But theres also something deeply vivacious about Villanelle, thanks in part to Comers expressive eyes and Pre-Raphaelite prettiness. Villanelle can be goofy and light. She loves a joke. She licks her handler Konstantins (Kim Bodnia) hands when shes feeling silly—an idea that Waller-Bridge came up with on the spot one day on set.

Comer pauses, attempting to recall any other on-set Waller-Bridgeisms. “Im tryna have a lil think,” she muses. Its a wonder theres no trace of her real voice when she plays Villanelle. The character speaks English with a heavy Russian accent, but its slightly mottled due to the fact that she also speaks French and Italian. And for all we know, she could speak dozens of languages. Comer, who only speaks English, remembers being “terrified” by the prospect of bringing this aspect to the screen. She would also be surrounded by crews and actors who spoke those languages, because the French scenes were shot in Paris, the Italian scenes in Tuscany, and so on. By the way, Comer would like Killing Eves production team to know that she really thinks Villanelle should do a kill in the Maldives next season. For, um, plot purposes. Definitely.

Thats happening, by the way: a second season. The series was renewed shortly before the first episode aired, a strong show of faith in the addictive series. (Comer celebrated by ordering her first-ever martini; she liked it, but shell stick to gin and tonics for now.) Its a heart-pumping thriller flecked with comedic sunspots, courtesy of Waller-Bridges singular, kooky sense of humor. Comer and Oh also make a brilliant tag team, playing two women who descend into utter obsession with one another. Though Comer was familiar with Ohs work before shooting the series, she had never watched Greys Anatomy, which she regards as a blessing now. Had she been an early fan, she might have fretted all throughout her first meeting with the erstwhile Dr. Cristina Yang, who personally ensured that Comer had all the props she needed for the audition. “Sandras the most professional person Ive ever worked with,” she says. Let it also be known that Oh has “the best hair,” Comer assures me, as thick and glorious as it appears on television (its so noticeably luxurious that it becomes a plot point in Episode 1.)

Comer is slightly tickled by the prospect that people in the real world might be afraid of her, thinking of the violent Villanelle when they see her out and about. But she also hopes that people secretly root for the bad girl with a broken past. “Its hard not to like her a little bit, I hope,” she says. “Ill be interested to see the reaction to her because, essentially, she is a villain—but is she?”

Get Vanity Fairs HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Full ScreenPhotos:Inside Vanity Fairs Glamorous Founders Fair SoiréeYohana DestaYohana Desta is a Hollywood writer for VanityFair.com.