The Peacock and Sky series The Day of the Jackal, which ranked #1 on Peacock’s Top 10 TV Shows chart and was the biggest new series ever to launch on Sky, pits a highly elusive lone assassin (Eddie Redmayne) against a British intelligence officer (Lashana Lynch) whose sole focus becomes tracking him down. A ghost until Bianca Pullman starts to put the pieces together, once she is on the trail of The Jackal, she’s too driven to stop hunting him in a cat-and-mouse game that keeps you on the edge of your seat. The Jackal is a master chameleon with the ability to disappear into a full transformation, from his face to his age to his voice, while Bianca is someone unwilling to lose her focus once she’s started down a particular path, no matter the cost. Thankfully, the success of the series has already led to a Season 2 pick-up, giving the two characters further opportunity to ultimately collide.

During this one-on-one interview with Collider, Redmayne, who is also an executive producer of the series, talked about the experience of playing such a complete enigma, doing sniper training, the skills he had to learn for the role, the very little amount of time that he actually spent on set with Lynch, the one shot they did share in the season, and the prosthetics transformations.

Eddie Redmayne’s ‘The Day of the Jackal’ Assassin Character Is a Charismatic Enigma

Collider: How do you approach playing a character like this? As the audience, it’s hard to know whether we ever see who this guy truly is because he’s different with pretty much anyone and everyone he comes into contact with. How did you process that? Did you come up with a baseline for him that you referred back to, or did you just focus on who he was with each person?

EDDIE REDMAYNE: I did find a baseline, in concert with our writer and Brian Kirk, our first block director. One of the things that appealed to me about the piece was having been a massive fan of the original source material, the book by Frederick Forsyth. With the movie, you spent two hours with this incredibly charismatic but complete enigma. He’s so opaque that you don’t know anything about him. What I liked the idea of was having the breadth of ten episodes in which to chink into that and get glimpses of who this guy might be. And the constant wrong footing is also something that intrigues me. One of the things that’s curious is that you learn more about him by the people he interacts with. Each character that he interacts with or has a relationship with shines a different mirror on him, and I found that compelling.

Do you feel like he even fully remembers who he is anymore, by this point?

REDMAYNE: I think there’s a bit of sociopathy in him. I spent some time doing sniper training. War can be a dehumanizing experience, in order to not take on the profundity of what killing people is. Whereas when you’re a sniper, you are literally magnifying that person’s face before you attempt to kill them, which demands a confrontation with both your humanity and their humanity. What does it take to be that person? That was one of the massive questions that drove me.

You get to do such a wide variety of things in this, from really cool car chases and escapes to the use of weapons to riding off on a horse. What was something specific to this character that you would not have gotten to do in anything else, but that you most enjoyed getting to do in this?

REDMAYNE: There were so many things. I don’t speak a word of German or a word of Spanish. And so, the idea of learning to speak German, but also with the voice of a 70-year-old chainsmoker, was an intriguing challenge. This brilliant woman who was my language and dialect coach taught me musically to repeat it. I had no knowledge of the language itself. And then, I had to throw that into the voice of someone who’s been smoking 20 a day for most of his voice. I didn’t jump off the whole building, but I did the top element of that, and I found that wonderful. The riding was hilarious because they had me out in Budapest. I do love prep, and I was preparing with our brilliant stunt coordinator’s horses and leaping up onto these horses and spending time on them, in order to do this chase where I’m being fired at. It was weeks of prep, and then we got to the day and this gigantic trailer arrived with a fake horse attached to the back of it. Basically, I ended up being put on a bucking bronco horse because either I was too crap at riding or they realized there was an insurance issue. So, as much as I would love to be Tom Cruise, I definitely did not do all my own stunts.

The Cat and Mouse Aspect of ‘The Day of the Jackal’ Made It Feel Like They Were Shooting Two Separate Films

Image via Peacock

I love a good cat and mouse story, where one character is trying to hunt down the other, but I would imagine the most disappointing aspect of that is spending little to no screen time together. Did you discuss that dynamic with Lashana Lynch, at all? Do you just have to have trust in each other? What was it like to figure out such an important relationship when you don’t get to directly interact?

REDMAYNE: It was completely surreal. Lashana and I spent maybe two days out of eight months on set together. Because we were shooting with two units going at the same time, the only times we saw each other were either in the gym while we were prepping or producer Zoom calls. It was like two films that were made independently. What I found riveting about that was that it reflects the dynamic of the piece. One of the things that I found so intriguing about this when I first read it is you have these two characters that are both meticulous and extraordinarily capable within their field, who both have moral ambiguities, some more than others, but who are both on a one-way track to a collision. Lashana and I, on a producorial level, are both similarly granular and we’re both very driven people. There was a lot of mirroring going on, which was wonderful. Those moments we were on set were hilarious because it was like seeing a long-lost friend.

There’s a shot in this that I absolutely love, when your characters are on opposite sides of the same wall, bathed in different colors. What did you think of that moment? I would imagine that you probably didn’t shoot it the same way we actually see it.

REDMAYNE: We actually really did. I’m so pleased you brought that up because that was a shot designed by our fantastic last block director, Anu Menon. It was this idea of these two people having a moment of confrontation. The way the shot was designed, our brilliant D.P. lit it beautifully and they have a moment in which one scrutinizes the other without the other seeing. The shot was designed to be played for real. The tension in the room as we shot that was electric. There’s a symbiosis in some ways because they are two sides of the same coin. They are people who have the same drive, the same passion, the same obsession, but are trying to reconcile that with being human and having a life and having a family.

Eddie Redmayne Loved the Transformation Process He Experienced for ‘The Day of the Jackal’

Image via Peacock

The prosthetics in this are so wild because you’re so transformed by them. Was it ever shocking for you to see yourself like that? Could you still see yourself in all of that?

REDMAYNE: One of the reasons I love The Day of the Jackal and I relate to the Jackal in some way is that I love the process and I love the craft of it. The building of those characters was a long, meticulous journey with Mel [Lenihan], our makeup designer, along with Richard [Martin], the prosthetics artist. He started by coming and scanning my head and creating this polystyrene sculpture of me. When I saw it in his workshop, I was like, “We need one of those in the Jackal’s [lair].” And when I saw the old clay sculpting tools that he used to sculpt the prosthetics, I was like, “We need those on the set, as well.” He would send me images and photographs and projections of what the character could look like.

 

In discussion with Brian and Mel and Natalie [Humphries], the costume designer, all of these elements had to work in concert with each other. You can do one side of it, like the voice, but the physical has to match the facial. The process is laborious, and as you see the character gently shift from your face, it takes three or four hours, so the moment is perhaps less shocking. But weirdly, when you take your clothes off, and you’re standing there topless, and it’s your body with this face, that was uncanny. My kids came to set and when I was this old guy, I remember my son was pulling at my nose to try to pull it off, but he couldn’t because it was all glued on. I think they were pretty freaked out by that. That should be added to the list of reasons you don’t want your parents to be actors. You’ll need years of therapy ahead.

 

The Day of the Jackal is available to stream on Peacock, and you can watch the first episode on NBC on December 30th. Check out the trailer: