Jodie Comer had been carousing with friends at a music festival in Barcelona (Spain), and nursing a hangover, when she got the call to audition with Sandra Oh in Los Angeles. Despite feeling her chances of landing the part were slim at best, she took a 13-hour flight to L.A. and after 5 minutes in reading with Sandra, the pair clicked.
Sandra Oh has said that she 'waited' 30 years for a role as meaty as this. When she first read the script, however, she had no idea who the producers wanted her to play, assuming she would be a receptionist or doctor, or some such secondary role usually attached to Asian actresses. Needless to say, she was ecstatic when her agent, Nancy Gates, assured her she'd be playing Eve.
Fiona Shaw, who is Irish, had originally wanted to play her character, Carolyn Martens, with an upper class Irish accent, but the producers declined her suggestion.
Jodie Comer learned the foreign languages Villanelle speaks in the series by phonetically writing them out from a tape recorder and reading them aloud.
Jodie Comer often listened to the music of Swedish electronic band Little Dragon as a way of setting the mood for her character Villanelle.