You can feel the charm coming at you in waves. “So,” she
says, dry-as-you-like, perusing the menu, “this is Penny
Lane... of the song fame.” She’s very pleased Vogue is here.
“There’s a couple of bars along here where we all used to go
as teens. My school’s not too far.” Technically, she still lives
10 minutes away, at home with her mum and dad, but she
only spent a handful of nights there over the past year,
between filming in Europe (Killing Eve season three) and
Boston (Free Guy, the upcoming action caper co-starring
Ryan Reynolds). Have the teenage posters come down?
“The Kooks!” she cries. “I was obsessed. I used to stick all
my band tickets up on the wall. But no posters anymore,”
she sighs. “I’ve got a lovely paisley wallpaper, actually.”
Americans, used to hearing her play every accent under
the sun as the chameleonic, Russian-born assassin in Killing
Eve, take great joy in encountering her Liverpool lilt for the
first time. When she went on The Ellen DeGeneres Show last
year, Ellen, like most of the audience, was visibly “shocked”
by Comer’s glottal stops. It was a cute bit, though underpinned
by the reality that many British actors who find success still
tend to come from middle-class backgrounds, and regional
accents, especially, get ironed out on the way. By contrast,
Comer has been working for 14 years, whether on television
or at Tesco in-between jobs, building a career without drama
school or industry contacts (her father Jimmy is a sports
massage therapist at Everton FC, her mother Donna works
for Merseytravel). For aspiring actors outside the M25, hers
is the most exciting Tinseltown invasion since noted Brummie
Julie Walters stormed the 1984 Oscars with Educating Rita.
“There was a time when you had to be in London, because
that’s where it was all going on. And now that just isn’t the
case,” says Comer with a smile. But will our fellow Sunday
punters clock her newly acquired Hollywood sheen? She’s
head-to-toe in Wrangler navy denim, wearing delicate gold
hoops, with her hair tied back in a black ribbon from Alex
Eagle Studio in London, looking incredible in a super-
stealthy way. “Oh, Elizabeth picked this out,” she says,
meaning her stylist and friend Elizabeth Saltzman, who
specialises in red carpet wow-gowns, but will, if you’re Jodie
Comer, pull together a look for the local boozer. Phoebe
Waller-Bridge hooked them up. “I was like, ‘Who is styling
you because you are looking extra hot lately?’ She said:
‘Elizabeth. I’ll introduce you.’”
On the chair next to her is a heavy, dark-blue peacoat.
The story of its procurement suggests how unusual her life
has become. “I had the most embarrassing, surreal experiencea couple of weeks ago. I was walking down the street in
London, incredibly hungover, on my way to Acne. I had
been mulling for ages whether to get the coat, and was like:
‘Now’s the time.’ Suddenly I hear, ‘Jodie... Jodie!’ It was
Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French and Annette Bening,”
she says, her eyes popping. “I’d never met them. They were
doing a film together [the upcoming Death on the Nile], so
that’s why they were all together. They said, ‘Congratulations
on all your success.’ And I was so hungover, so in a daze,
as they were chatting, that I was actually lost for words.
For the first time in my life, I just couldn’t speak. So
embarrassing,” she bangs the table, laughing. “I look back
and think, ‘F**k, if you could have just said any word.
Like, anything...’”
One of the gladdening things about Comer is how
unchanged being one of TV’s most celebrated new actors
has left her. “Always friendly, always hungover,” is how she
describes her tenure on the checkouts at Tesco in Woolton
aged 16, and it is often still the case. Describe Saturday-
night Jodie from back then? “Six-inch heels, dress, no coat,
make-up, the full shebang,” she beams. “So much fun.” It’s
the same zing that, a few years later, characterised her first
meeting with Waller-Bridge, who created Killing Eve and
wrote the first series. The pair got on so well at the 2017
Baftas that they ended up “6am-hotel-room-party drunk”
together, leaving Comer in a shame panic when her Eve
audition rolled around a few months later. Needless to say,
she shouldn’t have worried. The pair had spotted genius
in one another.
What is it that makes her so magnificent on screen? “Jodie’s
the greatest show on earth,” says Ryan Reynolds who,
alongside director Shawn Levy, cast Comer in Free Guy – her
first major movie role. The mega-budget, lavish effects-laden
film tells The Truman Show-ish story of Guy, a video-game
character made aware of his own existence by programmer
Millie (Comer, resplendent in what she terms “a very sassy
wig”). Reynolds was smitten. “I sometimes wonder if the
people who run Killing Eve realise how fortunate they are to
have her on their show,” he tells me. “To have a star who can
pivot nimbly between comedy, drama, darkness and abstract
fits of eccentricity. After that first day, we spent the next
couple of weeks rewriting her character. Mainly because she
can do anything. And she makes it look effortless. She doesn’t
let you see the work. But she must work so f**king hard.”
Comer bats away the compliments as her roast chicken with
all the trimmings arrives. Not generally given to introspection,
when pushed, she recalls of her young self, “From an early
age, I always had this kind of innate ability to really tap into
my emotions.” She spears a Yorkshire pudding. “I could cry.
Like, really cry. And do a lot of impressions.”
As Reynolds discovered, Comer’s modus operandi is a big
smile and a relentless work ethic. She was discovered, quite
by accident, at age 12, when she read a dramatic monologue
about the Hillsborough tragedy at a local theatre festival.
After being cast in her first professional job not long after – a
BBC Radio 4 play that paid £200 – she remembers realising:
“I could do this, it could also be my source of income... and
being, like, woah. I’d never made the connection from watching
the telly to thinking about the people who were on it.”
Despite guest spots on shows such as Doctors and Casualty,
Comer chose to stay in school until 18 – it has since created
a mural of her, Katarina Johnson-Thompson (world champion
heptathlete and Comer’s best friend) and a mystery third
person whose identity they can’t figure out. (“Abbey“I ALWAYS HADTHIS ABILITYTO REALLY TAPINTO MY EMOTIONS.I COULD CRY.LIKE, REALLY CRY.AND DO A LOTOF IMPRESSIONS”OPPOSITE:
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