If you spot Jodie Comer out and about, don’t expect her to slip into the Vilanelle voice should you ask her to do so.
The Killing Eve star has admitted she never adopts the accent of the deadly assassin except for when she is on the set of the hit BBC drama, as it makes her “toes curl” when she’s asked to do it.
In an interview with Time Out, Jodie said: “Sometimes I get asked to do it if I’m out in a bar and someone’s had a couple of drinks. My insides just go: “Urghhh” and my toes curl up. So no, I never get that one out – only when I’m on set and they say action.”
The actor, who hails from Liverpool, revealed she learned how to do different accents from watching TV when she was growing up.
She said: “Anything on the television that had some sort of regional accent, whether it was Cilla Black or a KFC advert. Me and my dad would always mimic them, purely just to make each other laugh.
“But I think that made me a bit fearless, so then when I was going to auditions and there was an accent on it that wasn’t my own, I wasn’t intimidated.”
Many fans of Jodie’s continue to be surprised when she speaks in her natural Liverpudlian accent when she is not in character – not least two of her recent co-stars.
Jodie revealed Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who she appears alongside in forthcoming film The Last Duel, hadn’t heard it when they were shooting the film.
She recalled: “It’s funny because we were in Venice recently and Ben was like: ‘I think this is the first time I’ve actually heard you speak properly in your own voice...’”
She added that she’d also “missed an opportunity” to teach them any Liverpudlian slang.
Jodie is currently filming the fourth and final series of Killing Eve alongside co-star Sandra Oh.
The third series of Killing Eve debuted in 2020, but production on the fourth run was delayed due to the coronavirus crisis. It is now set to air in 2022.
