We Are Villaneve

Killing Eve's Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer open up about TV's most mesmerizing, twisted relationship

By Dan Snierson/February 21, 2019

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Sandra Oh and Fiona Shaw reunion at Sandra's performance of The Misanthrope in London. I'm not crying. You're crying!

As an actor gearing up to appear at the National for the first time, Oh had, a few weeks earlier, the amazing good fortune to run into Fiona Shaw at a grocery store in her LA neighbourhood, where her Killing Eve co-star happened to be living while filming. “She’s one of the greatest stage actors of her generation and knows the National,” says Oh. In the supermarket aisle and later, over breakfast at Oh’s house, Shaw gave her a bunch of hacks about the stage at the Lyttelton. “She said, ‘If you’re going to be on this stage, look out for [the sight lines] in this area,’ or, ‘This is the strongest area on stage, do this technicality this way.’ She was giving me the gold. I could not believe it.”

Oh as Eve was a revelation; by turns sardonic, baffled, excavating every nuance of what it is to be a frustrated, overlooked cog in the machine, and all the while harbouring star status that let out in her electric chemistry with Comer.

Eight years and another big show – Netflix’s excellent comedy drama, The Chair – later and Oh’s attitude to all this history is by turns philosophical, resigned and, increasingly, weary of being asked to relive it. She’s that rare actor willing to say crunchy political things such as “Patriarchy runs within all of us” or “If you’re going to put all your stock and wait for the white dude to give you the opportunity … that’s destructive.” Equally, however, raking over and over the bad times gets old. When I ask what makes her angry these days, she says: “Isn’t that just the question and the challenge of life? How do you deal with life not being fair, or/and turning out the way you want? You’ve gotta figure it out. You have to find different avenues to work out what’s going on subconsciously and consciously. Typically women have – I shouldn’t say ‘typically women’.” She thinks for a moment. “No, I will say that. I think this is the one thing that particularly straight men have a much more difficult time with, which is to find friendships where there are deep conversations, and where they can talk things out. I have that relationship with friends, both men and women, because I’m lucky, but also when you’re an artist you’re trying to figure that out all the time in your work.”

Figure out what, exactly?

“Figure out what you’re saying, which is: how do I deal with my rage? Or: how do I deal with what’s going on in the world? You can work that out physically, or talking-wise, or you can work that out in art. I will say I’ve been putting that in every single project.”

So many of Comer's characters across stage and screen tell stories that are deeply rooted in perspective, which she agrees is "so true," and her work in The Death of Robin Hood is no exception. Right when you think you know the extent of Sister Brigid and Robin Hood's relationship, the rug is pulled out, and the entire movie feels different. "I also love that there's quite a big revelation in the film of who Robin is and actually the connection that he has to her own past, and how she's able to transmute her own pain. She doesn't meet violence with violence. She's also at a point where she's connected with this man on a different level. Then she finds out that news. So there's just a lot that she has to deal with in that moment, and I feel like she had a tremendous amount of grace. Which made me question, 'God, would I be able to find that within myself?'"

Phoebe Waller-Bridge, of Fleabag fame, is credited with bringing Killing Eve to life, serving as showrunner and head writer for Season 1. Though the love for and dedication to these characters would only build, the series as a whole didn't have a flawless reception, with some arguing that the tone and overarching narrative felt fractured in the latter half of the series. One of the possible explanations for this could be that each season had a new showrunner, meaning a new captain steering the ship. Season 2 was run by Emerald Fennell, Season 3 by Suzanne Heathcote, and Laura Neal for its final — and most divisive — season. "I think it can innately be tricky," Comer says when I ask her about the frequent changes in showrunner. "Each person has their own impression, their own viewpoint of the characters, and so it's always going to be flowing, and it's always going to have a different imprint on it, you know? You want to make sure that that is grounded by an innate sense of truth and loyalty to the characters, but it's inevitable that it's going to shift because we're all so different and we all have different experiences to different things, depending on our own life experiences."

I always wonder, when a series wraps, if the cast and crew keep in touch. "Not for a while, actually," Comer says with an air of melancholy. It's hard to imagine these people, who seem joined at the hip for such a long time, suddenly not speaking anymore. But the reality is that, well, it's a job. "But I've just seen that Sandra is doing a play in London, I think! I have to go see her," she says excitedly. "You're thrust into these very intense situations for, like, eight weeks, and then you feel like, 'This is my life!' and then you're gone. You have to be adaptable, and that doesn't take away from anything that you have experienced with someone," continuing, "You can support someone, but it doesn't mean that you're in each other's pockets."

“I’m not a writer or director, nor do I particularly want to be, but coming deeper into midlife, I’m interested in finding a collaborator where I don’t have to look for what I can fit into. There’s so much shit that doesn’t fucking fit me. Why should I try to jam myself into the canon? I’ve always felt outside of it. I’ll just create a new canon. I really want to be part of that.” --- Sandra Oh for British Vogue.