Jodie Comer isn’t afraid to suffer for her art it seems.
So much so that the British actor insisted on her Killing Eve co-star Sandra Oh slapped her for real as the pair filmed a key scene for the fourth series of the BBC drama.
Stuntman Jonathan Cohen worked with the pair on the BBC drama and in a new interview with Radio Times, he revealed that Jodie, who plays Villanelle, wanted one particular scene to look as real as possible.
“There was a scene in series four of Killing Eve where Eve (Sandra) slaps Villanelle,” Jonathan recalled.
“Sandra really didn’t want to make the slap connect, so we were going to shoot it from a certain angle without physical contact. Jodie was like, ‘For this particular scene, it’s dramatic, it’s important. I would like Sandra to slap me.’
“The director said he’d go with my guidance, so Sandra and I went off into a corner and she practised slapping me. She’s the loveliest lady — it took a little bit of gentle encouragement for her to feel it was OK to do that. But she does actually slap Jodie in that scene.”
He added: “As a stunt coordinator, you’re always trying to protect everybody. You don’t want anybody to get as much as a scratch, but this was one where artistic licence was allowed.”
Killing Eve’s final episode, which aired back in April, left many fans unhappy after the ending for Eve and Villanelle was branded “lazy” and “unoriginal”.
The finale was a markedly different to the Codename Villanelle books by Luke Jennings on which the show is based, which sees Eve and Villanelle escape their chaotic lives and settle together in St Petersburg.
Fans vented their frustration at the TV adaption’s ending, complaining that they had waited four seasons to see Eve and Villanelle together, only for one of them to die moments later.
It was also noted that the writer’s decision to kill a queer character played into the ‘bury your gays’ trope present in many works of fiction, whereby more queer characters – and in particular lesbian, bisexual female and transgender characters – die compared to their straight cisgender counterparts.
Despite the fourth and final season of Killing Eve disappointing many critics and viewers alike, a spin-off prequel is understood to be in the pipeline, which will focus on Fiona Shaw’s character, Carolyn Martens.
The new issue of Radio Times is out now.