Sandra Oh plays Eve Polastri and is the Co-Executive Producer of Killing Eve.
What’s in store for Eve in season two?
Eve’s journey in season two takes her to a psychologically dark place. She’s pushed to the limit in every way - in her marriage, at work, in her personality and sexually. She isolates herself because she’s so obsessed with Villanelle. Her personality starts to change because she foregoes a lot of her friendships to solve a new mystery and ultimately succeed in her job. Eve and Kenny have always had a lovely relationship and it is really pushed and tried this season. All her relationships are.
How does Eve and Villanelle’s relationship develop in season two?
It’s definitely deeper and is not so much a discovery anymore. It’s not only a chase, it’s understanding how to be in relation to each other. When they are in the same room, it’s too much energy. They’re like two sparks that explode when they are together, yet they need each other. Season two gets much more complicated.
What is it like working with Jodie Comer?
I love working with Jodie. We have gone deeper in our trust with each other as actors this season and it’s deeper between Eve and Villanelle too. When we shoot our scenes together it feels like there’s only the two of us there in that moment. And that’s the same between Villanelle and Eve. It’s only the two of them so it’s very intimate.
What can you tell us about Eve and Niko’s relationship in season two?
Their relationship is pushed to the limit because Eve needs to explore her darker side, and it’s a line that Niko finds impossible to cross as well. During the series he is forced to wake up to how deep, how far and how dark Eve has gone, but he can’t follow. Ultimately it’s disappointing for Eve because the success of a long-term relationship is if your partner can also change. It doesn’t have to be in the same way, but you need to know that you’re growing together or simultaneously.
How does the relationship between Eve and Carolyn evolve in season two?
What Carolyn does best is to manipulate and inspire at the same time. At the top of season two she brings Eve back to the fold, to continue hunting Villanelle and to use her understanding of female psychopaths and killers. Eve joins a new team at MI6 and we are introduced to a couple of new characters, Jess and Hugo. It was so great to have new energy and dynamics. Eve and Jess are very close in age and they have a great repartee. Hugo is a wannabe Lothario and there’s a lot of interesting tension between him and Eve.
Killing Eve mixes drama, thriller and comedy genres perfectly. What is it like to switch between these tones?
The tone of Killing Eve is very tricky and it’s hard to describe. It’s also hard to write, hard to perform and hard to nail down. We understand what a drama, thriller or comedy genre is, but Killing Eve is a real mash of all those three. This cast is phenomenal because everyone is grounding their performance in their own truth. There are crazy, heightened moments of high theatrics which are so over the top but completely grounded in truth. Then in the middle of all the hysteria is the ridiculousness. Even that is always situational and based in character. It’s never just jokes. It’s hard to describe the tone of the show but it’s also tricky to sustain because we bump in and out of genres.
Killing Eve takes place in cities like Paris, Amsterdam, Rome and London. What’s it like filming in these major cities?
This is very much a British show because of the tone, the writing and the characters, but it’s also such a European show because of the international chase. The locations are so important to the storytelling and are a big part of the style and genre of the show. They fill the show with such a richness and depth which is irreplaceable - you just can’t do it with CGI or on an LA backlot.
But, we don’t have to fly over the Eiffel Tower so everyone knows that it’s Paris. You get the flavour of a city because of the locations that are chosen. Like the trees in Rome - Italy has these specific type of pine trees that look like umbrellas. If we show them in a wide shot it’s familiar to anyone who knows Italy. London has the most unbelievable locations. It is challenging to shoot in London but there are the most amazing locations all on one street. There’s a lot of history, depth and character there.
