The Accent Jodie Comer Will Never Do as Villanelle on ‘Killing Eve’ Is Too Close to Home for the Actress
Villanelle on Killing Eve is many things, as Eve tells her in the Season 3 finale. She’s most notably an assassin who’s very good at her job. And she doesn’t just go in for the kill; no, she often has an alias with a whole backstory involved. As Jodie Comer expertly displays, her accent game is strong beyond belief. Even outside of just speaking other languages like Russian, French, and Italian, she actually sounds like she’s from these places, too. But there is one accent Comer will never do on the show. At least not on purpose. [Spoiler alert: General spoilers ahead for Killing Eve].
Villanelle is an assassin with style and a great knack for accents
As stated above, Villanelle is a serial killer, hired assassin. Sure, it’s a job, but there’s also a sense of enjoyment she gets in some kills, and at the start of the series was definitely considered a psychopath. In her regular, day-to-day life, Villanelle is very fabulous and expresses herself in the best outfits.
In addition to that type of style she possesses, Villanelle has a love for the drama of it all and is never who she really is. Even “Villanelle” is a persona she created to escape who she was born as, which is Oksana. Either way, Comer has had to play Villanelle as different nationalities, from her everyday accent of Russian to Australian, Spanish, Italian, and Scottish which she got a lot of compliments for online.
But don’t ever expect Villanelle to use Comer’s real accent on the show. Ever.
In a live stream interview on BAFTA’s Facebook page on June 5, the cast of Killing Eve talked about Season 3 and its finale, which aired on May 31. Journalist Miranda Sawyer gave the actresses some fan questions at one point. One of them was from a fan named Nev who asked Comer if she’d ever do her native Scouse accent on the show.
“Nev: never,” Comer simply said. “We actually, Season 2, it got written in one episode and I asked them to take it out because it just seemed too gimmicky for me… We knew she does accents but Scouse felt a little bit too much of a far stretch for me.”
For anyone who’s confused, a Scouse accent is the term used for the way Liverpudlians speak. And Comer, being from Liverpool, naturally has that accent. It’s always a bit of a shock for fans to hear her natural accent because Villanelle’s is so different. But she’ll never give Villanelle that too-close-to-home sound.
“It felt a bit too, you know, ‘wink-wink’ to the camera,” she continued. “So, no, I’m afraid not. Scouse will not be making an appearance on Killing Eve.”
She then said that she hopefully won’t “slip into it” on accident. But after three seasons of portraying Villanelle flawlessly, it seems highly unlikely that like she’ll mess up.
Comer got her great accent ability from her dad
Where did Comer learn to do such a good job with all these different accents? As we especially saw in Season 2 (video above) when Villanelle is asking Eve who she wants her to be to bait that tech CEO, she flows in and out of accents and personalities so flawlessly. It’s mesmerizing to watch. Turns out, she got that knack from her dad.
“It comes from growing up,” Comer said, according to Metro UK last May. “Me and my dad, if there was an advert with a silly voice on we’d always impersonate it around the house just joking around.”
She did touch on her own accent in the show back then too, saying that it’s “harder to separate myself from the character” when she’s using her natural accent. She didn’t seem as opposed to doing a Scouse accent at some point on the show, but it seems she’s changed her mind now.
