British Vogue - 04.2020

Clancy also went to my school. Is it her?” she giggles, showing me a

photo of the wall. It is almost certainly not.)

Comer was so naturally gifted that she worked solidly through her

teens. Well, almost solidly. “I remember there was a year where I didn’t

work for eight or nine months,” she says, unusually perturbed by the

memory. “You get up in the morning, get yourself ready, get to the train

station, two-hour train, get to your audition, you’re in there for 10

minutes, and then you’re coming all the way back home. Sometimes I

was doing it three times a week. What I realised, the more that I wasn’t

working, was that I stunk of desperation, basically. It became: ‘I need

the job.’ And then you go into auditions and they can smell it.”

But she was determined. “My dad was very good at football when

he was younger. He had the potential to go very far, and he said,

‘I made the mistakes when I was 18, 19 of getting carried away with

life and going out with the lads and drinking. If you’re going to do this,

you do it. You don’t half-ass it. And if that’s what you want, then we’ll

be here 100 per cent of the way.’”

After the Liverpudlian character actor Stephen Graham (a favourite

of Martin Scorsese) shot a scene with her for BBC drama Good Cop,

he was so impressed by her portrayal of a sexually harassed waitress

that he called his uber agent, Jane Epstein, and persuaded her to represent

Comer. “I was lucky that the momentum came back,” she says. Although

some may argue that it was talent, not luck.

It became clear that her speciality was playing small-screen dynamos

lacking empathy – from My Mad Fat Diary’s resident mean girl, Chloe,

to Kate, the notorious other woman in Dr Foster. She was especially

proud of the latter, of not letting her, “become this one-dimensional

homewrecker. That’s so boring. There has to be more.” Of course, she

found it most purely in Killing Eve. What can we expect from season

three? Will Eve have survived? Will we get more glimpses into

Villanelle’s past? “We kind of delve into it a little bit,” she confirms

(cue gasps of delight from fans across the world). “The audience love

what they love about her, but it’s been nice to show a different side to

that. Maybe a little bit of vulnerability,” she adds, with a sphinxy smile.

Conversation drifts to her life outside work, the reality of which is

there hasn’t been time for much. I point out there’s not a lot written

about Jodie and love. “I’m very much in it,” she replies suddenly. Oh,

congratulations. “Thank you,” she laughs. “I think love’s the best. I’d

been single for a while and just kind of going with the flow and doing

my thing. That’s the thing, isn’t it? When you’re relaxed and letting the

universe do what it’s doing, things kind of fall into place. Which is very

much what happened. Which is great.”

XXX

164

“MY DAD SAID,

‘IF YOU’RE GOING

TO ACT, YOU DO IT.

YOU DON’T

HALF-ASS IT.

AND IF THAT’S

WHAT YOU WANT,

THEN WE’LL BE HERE

100 PER CENT

OF THE WAY’”

> 223

04-20-Well-JodieComer_1893292.indd 164 13/02/2020 14:21