“You should never tell a psychopath they’re a psychopath. It upsets them,” says Jodie Comer (The White Princess), who plays—a psychopath—known as Villanelle, in BBC America’s Killing Eve.

“Are you upset?” asks Sandra Oh’s Eve. Comer’s pout at the end of the trailer says it all.

The first promo for the cat-and-mouse psychological thriller offers a peek into the warped relationship between the two strong female characters.

Oh stars as a bored, whip-smart, pay-grade MI5 security officer whose desk-bound job doesn’t fulfill her fantasies of being a spy. Villanelle is a mercurial, talented killer who clings to the luxuries her violent job affords her.

“It was ridiculously fun,” Comer said about her character at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour. “She’s such a free character and the more I ran with that throughout the series, the more liberating it was … I shouldn’t take away from the fact that she is definitely unhinged.”

It’s a fun kind of crazy.

“There is something glorious about a woman existing without fear or consequences of her actions, and not bridled with shame in a way that so many female characters are,” said Phoebe Waller-Bridge, lead writer, showrunner and executive producer.

Comer also enjoyed slipping into different characters to make her kills.

“Jodie is a natural cameleon,” Waller-Bridge said.

For Oh, the role is a step outside of her confident, decisive character from Grey’s Anatomy. Eve hasn’t quite found her voice yet, and her fascination with Villanelle speaks to something dark lurking just below the surface of her personality.

“There is something she feels about Villanelle being out in the world that is exciting to her, when everybody else is terrified,” Waller-Bridge said.

The series is based on the novellas by Luke Jennings, but in Waller-Bridge’s version Eve is less serious—and also Asian.

Against the backdrop of efforts for more diversity on television, Oh called it a “considerable casting choice,” adding she was “happy it was taken into consideration … and that it wasn’t taken into consideration.”

The cast also includes Fiona Shaw (Harry Potter, True Blood), David Haig (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Penny Dreadful), Kim Bodnia (The Bridge), Darren Boyd, Sean Delaney, Kirby Howell-Baptiste and Owen McDonnell.

The series is produced Sally Woodward Gentle’s Sid Gentle Films, with Gentle and Lee Morris as executive producers, Colin Wratten as producer and Oh as associate producer.

Killing Eve premieres Sunday, April 8 on BBC America.

"Killing Eve" key art. [BBC America]
“Killing Eve” key art. [BBC America]

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