Eddie Redmayne as the Jackal and Lashana Lynch as MI6 employee Bianca Pullman in “The Day of the Jackal,” a TV series based on Frederick Forsyth’s classic thriller novel. (Peacock/AP)
Lashana Lynch was running away from spies.
After playing Nomi in 2021’s “No Time To Die,” she was actively avoiding any role that involved working for the secret service. What part could beat a Bond girl who took James Bond’s 007 code name from him?
“I was like, ‘No, I’m not doing it again. That’s a legacy role. That’s something that absolutely should be untouched forever,’” Lynch recalls.
But then she read the character of Bianca Pullman for a TV series based on Frederick Forsyth’s classic thriller “The Day of the Jackal.” Bianca was also an employee of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency, but the differences between the two MI6 workers appealed: While Nomi was slick, Bianca was a mess Lynch could dive into.
“I’d pushed against this world for a long time and it felt like it came right at me full throttle,” she says.
No one is happier that she jumped on board than Eddie Redmayne, who plays the Jackal, the mythlike murderer for hire. Her “versatility is insane,” he says, adding that Lynch even suggested the perfect song for the theme, Celeste’s “This Is Who I Am.”
“The Day of the Jackal” updates Fred Zinnemann’s 1973 movie, starring Edward Fox as the cravat-wearing killer hired to kill the French president.
Redmayne’s version inherits the gentlemanly style of Fox, living a life of jet-setting quiet luxury, funded by getting away with murder through ingenious devices, clever disguises and flawless planning. Bianca is the intelligence officer and arms expert who will stop at nothing to find him, much to the discomfort of her co-workers and family.
Lynch and Redmayne are also producers on the show, which is airing on Sky in the U.K. and debuts Nov. 14 on Peacock. They didn’t spend much time together on set but saw each other in makeup and at the gym and reunited for this interview with The Associated Press.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity:
Associated Press: So you both worked together very hard on this, but filming was completely separate?
Redmayne: It was so strange to do a job in which you’re so intimately connected to another character, and yet you don’t get to spend any time with the actor. But those moments we did have on set were pretty precious.
Lynch: We won’t tell you what they were.
Eddie Redmayne had to wear prosthetics to play the Jackal, who was known for his clever disguises, in the new series. (Peacock/AP)
What was the weirdest moment for you, where you’re looking at yourself in the mirror through the face of somebody else?
Redmayne: What’s weird about prosthetics is it’s such a long process — it’s not like you sort of blink an eyelid and you’ve changed. So you see it layered on and there are interesting moments along that process. But it was always at the end of the day when I would take my clothes off and I would sort of have this old German caretaker face and then my sort of scrawny, sort of 40-year-old body underneath. That was very disjointed and odd.
Both characters have a very dubious morality. Was that so viewers are pulled in two different directions?
Lynch: That’s one thing that this show does really well and what Ronan (Bennett), our writer, did really well in that, that running in parallel happened so seamlessly that you don’t really see it coming. And every single episode you feel like you want to root for someone like Bianca, but the Jackal just makes sense. Even though he’s just done something completely heinous. You almost want to be him, which is, I think, the point.
Did you get gun training together?
Lynch: No, although we crossed over with the spy training. Spy training, which was us just walking around Covent Garden, looking through shop windows, using our phones and car mirrors to find people, to track people and record them without them seeing. This is not just regular people on the street. This is someone that we’ve specifically said!
I’ve heard of this type of spy training before; the “Slow Horses” guys did it.
Redmayne: Did they? Oh no! They’ve stolen our thunder.
Lashana Lynch as MI6 employee Bianca Pullman in a scene from “The Day of the Jackal.” Co-star Eddie Redmayne says that Lynch was “more deft” than he was when they had to use guns on the series, but she disagrees. (Peacock/AP)
Eddie Redmayne as the Jackal in a scene from “The Day of the Jackal.” Redmayne says he spent most of his gun training for the series working with sniper rifles. (Peacock/AP)
Who was best?
Redmayne: We didn’t do it on the same day. I would have to ask Paul, our spy expert, about that, but I imagine Lashana was better.
Lynch: No, no.
Redmayne: You’re sort of more deft around a corner, certainly with the guns you are. Because I spent most of my gun training working on sniper rifles. So when it came to bits when I had to do that thing and move like that (mimes holding a gun) around the corner, I was a bit crap.
