Between Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch, the actors have tackled roles in a wide variety of genres, including action, fantasy, adventure, drama and biographical projects. But there is one genre they’d both like to explore: Rom-com.
“I’m gagging to do a rom-com,” Redmayne admits in an exclusive interview with Parade.
“Same!” Lynch concurs.
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Oscar winner Redmayne, whose credits include The Theory of Everything, The Danish Girl and The Good Nurse, points out, “I always do such serious stuff,” but notes that he thinks rom-coms are “hard.”
“Yeah. I think it’s harder than we probably think it is,” Lynch says. “I’ve been dying to do something light for the last 10 years.”
While the No Time to Die actress wanted her next role to be in a comedy and to give herself a break from stunts, her latest project took her on a cat-and-mouse chase with Redmayne. The pair star in the new action-packed thriller series The Day of the Jackal, which premiered Nov. 14 on Peacock.
Though Redmayne has taken over the role of the Jackal in this modern reimagining of the novel and 1973 movie of the same name, he still has no interest in taking up the mantle of James Bond. Continue reading to find out why the Academy Award-winning actor does not want to play 007, plus more.
The first five episodes of The Day of the Jackal premiered Nov. 14 on Peacock. New episodes will be released weekly on Thursdays with a double-episode finale dropping Dec. 12.
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Eddie, this is your first series in over a decade. Why was The Day of the Jackal the one to make the return to the small screen?
Eddie Redmayne: Honestly, it was the scripts. I read the first three scripts, and I’d grown up loving The Day of the Jackal, the original movie from the ’70s. It was untouchable, as far as I was concerned. So I sort of opened the scripts with trepidation and a bit of intrigue. And when I started reading it, because it was set now, rather than in the ’60s, it felt like a completely different beast. But it retained this DNA from the original that was about, in this genre, the Jackal’s kind of unique. He’s a dandy. He kind of loves his clothes. He loves changing the way he looks, what languages he speaks, the way he interacts in the world. He’s a bit of an actor, really. And I thought the idea of playing an actor assassin was intriguing.
If I’m not mistaken, this is your first action role. Was preparation for this more grueling compared to previous roles?
Redmayne: Yeah, I suppose there was a bit of “action-y” stuff, but that involved wands, in Fantastic Beasts. But [me and Lashana] were both put through quite grueling regimen. We worked with an espionage consultant. We did some gun work. I went to this amazing rifle range outside of London called Bisley, and shot these sniper rifles over two, three kilometers. But that stuff is all the fun stuff. That’s one of the joys of doing our job. You play a sniper or an assassin, and you get to learn all this kind of weird, hopefully, useless in your day-to-day life stuff.
Lashana Lynch: [Laughs.]
Marcell Piti/Carnival Film & Television Limited
Having done this, is there now another genre that you haven’t explored, but you’d like to dive into?
Redmayne: I’m gagging to do a rom-com. Fancy doing a rom-com?
Lynch: Same!
Redmayne: I always do such serious stuff. But I think they’re hard.
Lynch: Yeah. I think it’s harder than we probably think it is. I’ve been dying to do something light for the last 10 years.
Redmayne: Isn’t that what you were saying before this? [Laughs.]
Lynch: Yes! Literally. I was like, “I’m gonna do a comedy. I’m gonna do a rom-com or a comedy. Straight comedy or dark comedy, something that’s gonna make me feel light within myself. And then, you know…
Redmayne: Intense espionage thriller.
Lynch: Truly! And I was like, “That’s the one! That’s what the universe is calling to me.” Rom-com, definitely. I mean, I love watching them. They’re just so beautiful and sweet.
I think we need a Lashana and Eddie rom-com out there.
Redmayne: Manifest that. Manifest that. You can have a producing credit.
Lynch: [Laughs.] Yes! You’re welcome.
Marcell Piti/Carnival Film & Television Limited
[Laughs.] Lashana, you’re no stranger to action flicks. You’re Maria Rambeau in the MCU; you’re a 00 agent in No Time to Die. But what was this experience like, being involved in a cat-and-mouse chase across Europe?
Lynch: It was really nice to revisit stunts after I said I would not do stunts for a while. I quite literally said, “Give my body a break. I’m not going to do that.” And then you read some scripts sometimes, and you’re just like, “There’s just no way that I couldn’t gravitate towards this.” Me now, having done so many stunts, when I read a stunt on the page, I see the character. I see how they approach their weaponry or their occupation. My approach to this was, at the beginning, through my body. We met through the gym, and it was quite intense at the beginning. I think I did like six days a week, just banging out the gym and trying to watch as many things that created Bianca’s physical style.
But then after that, unbeknownst to me, I would just throw that away and get more into the psychology of who Bianca is, what she represents, and what I felt I connected with her most on, which was her background. She comes from literally around the corner from where I grew up as a child in London. And I recognized a lot of her, how she gravitates towards the need for that crunchy, icky part in your work, where you just want to be a part of it all the time and you’re a little bit obsessed with it. She ran with that completely. She’s a 10 out of 10 when it comes to height of obsession. Full-on commitment. And I liked that. I liked that I recognized a little bit of myself and people that I know. But also she’s so far along the spectrum that I knew that it would be incredibly beautiful to play, and that a lot of women watching would be able to recognize a little bit of their selves in her.
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Do you feel like your previous action roles shaped the way you approached Bianca in The Day of the Jackal?
Lynch: I think me learning that every single action role has to be different and match that character has definitely determined how I approached her physical style. I wanted her to have a flair that was a little bit like how I approached Nomi in No Time to Die. I didn’t want everything to be slick and have it together all the time. I didn’t want her to feel like she had the physical answer to something. I wanted to see that she was finding things on the fly. Whereas previous characters, they have everything so set that you just know they’re gonna get it right.
I wanted audiences to be worried that she might get it wrong, and in playing that, I found that her style became a little, yes, relying on training, but also going completely rogue. I found that more interesting than her being slick or having it together. I wanted her a little rough around the edges, which I think is the Londonesque sense of the show that we get from all of the locations. That London grit, I think, comes out in her physical style and her weaponry.
Marcell Piti/Carnival Film & Television Limited
Did working on this project bring back memories of No Time to Die?
Lynch: I thought it would going into MI6. But then the set is so completely different. The MI6 in No Time to Die was a little more classic. M’s office has traditional leather seating, very sophisticated and smooth. I had a really good feeling in there. Whereas our MI6’s has a little more of a serious, clinical.
Redmayne: It was almost like more of an office space.
Lynch: Exactly. And the colors were so different. This had a deep green. I actually must applaud and thank Brian Kirk, our first block director, for sharing with me that the deep green not only reflects the kinds of green that you would see in and around the MI6 building in London, but that also reflects off of black skin really well. And I loved the conversation we had about how your environment and the color palette that you use really lends itself to taking care of the different types of cast members that you get in shows like this. So, yeah, very, very, very different. And here I was more set to task. I got to sit in my desk. I didn’t get to do that in No Time to Die. I leaned on a desk before Daniel [Craig] came in. But Bianca’s constantly obsessing over the articles that she’s reading. [Laughs.]
Redmayne: Her poor pens. I always feel like Bianca’s pens are chewed to a [point from] all of her anxieties.
Lynch: Oh my God. Literally props would be like, “Do you want this chewed pen or this chewed pen?” And I’d be like, “Ah, that one. Did I chew it?” [Laughs.]
Redmayne: [Or] someone else? [Laughs.]
Lynch: Exactly. A prepped chewed pen, or was it mine?
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Marcell Piti/Carnival Film & Television Limited
Being a 00 yourself, do you think Eddie would make a great Bond? Because I don’t know if you’ve seen some of the fan reactions out there to the trailer and the first look.
Lynch: I have! Did you know that Eddie does not have an interest in playing Bond? I think he would be perfect, but if you don’t want to, it’s never gonna be a good time for you. [Laughs.]
Redmayne: I feel like I’m too old. I just don’t want to see myself in [those movies]. I want to go to those movies.
Lynch: And experience it.
Redmayne: I have like a very specific group of actors that I would like to see play Bond. I’ve never [spoken] to Daniel about it. But you can see that it has a real cost on your expectations. Whereas what I’ve always loved about the Jackal is he has such a unique quality to him. He has this kind of shape-shifting, slightly flâneur, kind of dandy, peacocking quality that within the genre, it’s quite specific. The film was hugely successful and the book, of course. But it doesn’t come with quite the same baggage.
Lynch: Yes. The franchise has been so upheld by the ever-changing Bonds that we experience. That means that there’s just so much in that choice. There’s just so much around it. Whereas here you get to play and you can pay homage to the original IP. You can create something different. You can bring in new fans. It’s just that I think it’s a different, more open experience, knowing that there are originals that [you can watch] separately. As opposed to marking it as “the event of Eddie Redmayne playing the next James Bond.” [Laughs.]
Redmayne: [Laughs.] Rom-com. We’re doing the rom-com.
Lynch: Yeah, which you’re a producer. [Laughs.]
[Laughs.] I look forward to that! If you each had a codename like the Jackal or Sparrow, what would your codename be and why?
Redmayne: The Freckle.
Lynch: [Laughs.]
Redmayne: That, by the way, is my codename in China. Do you know about this? I went to do press in China once, and the journalist said, “Eddie, do you know that in China, everyone gives you a nickname?” I was like, “I don’t know this.” For example, Benedict Cumberbatch is something to do with an otter. And I was like, “Okay, is this a complimentary title?” And they were like, “Yes.” I was like, “What’s mine?” And they said, “Little Freckle” Little Freckle would be my [codename]. [Laughs.]
Lynch: Okay. I would say that I would go even more obscure and do like what Prince did.
Redmayne: Oh, a symbol!
Lynch: Yeah! A symbol that you can’t actually say.
Redmayne: Oh, that’s so much cooler.
Lynch: You can only see it, but you can’t say it.
Redmayne: What is the symbol?
Lynch: It’s this. [Does complicated hand gesture.]
Redmayne: [Repeats the gesture.] “Ah, the agent.”
Lynch: [Laughs.] Exactly.
Redmayne: It’s gonna be a franchise. [Laughs.]
Lynch: Unscrambling it [turns to be] “burger” or something. Just something really useless [Laughs.]
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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