‘Killing Eve’ star goes from a less-than-diverse writer’s room to a dazzling Tony nomination

If you don’t know her as Villanelle in Killing Eve, perhaps you’ll recognize her for her most recent feature-film role as Molotov Girl in Free Guy. No? Maybe you’ve been a fan since day one, adoring her performance as Chloe in My Mad Fat Diary. If not any of these, you’re definitely an avid lover of theater, following her journey as Tessa in her one-woman play, Prima Facie. Of course, if you haven’t caught on by now, we’re talking about the incomparable Jodie Comer, a Liverpudlian who’s become a household name in recent years after earning traction for her performance as Villanelle in the critically acclaimed spy-thriller series Killing Eve, alongside Canadian-American Sandra Oh.

Prima Facie is currently showing on Broadway after sweeping London’s West End. As for Comer, she’s been basking in the limelight of continued fame, gearing up for an eventual MCU debut as Sue Storm, if the rumors are anything to go by. Comer has even received a Tony nomination for Prima Facie, which might be one of Broadway’s hottest plays at present. It wasn’t always glitz and glamor for Jodie, who found herself in the middle of a feud between Killing Eve‘s writers room and loyal fans of the hit BBC America show. If Killing Eve‘s atrocious ending didn’t sever ties between Laura Neal and the audience, nothing ever will.

Even before Killing Eve wrapped up its fourth season in April 2022, the show had faced criticism for a lack of diversity in the writer’s room, hence lighting the fuse for the explosive discourse between the show’s creators and consumers. As we’ve mentioned before, the writers’ room of Killing Eve has not included a POC since it was originally set up around 2008, despite Phoebe Waller-Bridge changing Eve’s ethnicity from Luke Jennings’ novel iteration specifically to cast Sandra Oh as the lead.

That’s a major oversight for such an inclusive show, which features several Black characters, an Asian lead, and remains one of the go-to LGBTQ+ love stories in TV history. It all started with a screenshot from a Zoom meeting that featured all the writers, all of whom are white. There’s never been an actual reason given for the severe lack of POC creatives, but while Comer was involved, she was too busy receiving heaps of praise to get tangled in that whole mess.

If you’ve had the absolute pleasure of seeing Prima Facie for yourself, you’ll know that Tony nomination was well-deserved, as were her BAFTA and Emmy awards for Killing Eve. Right now, Comer is well on her way to being indicted into the EGOT hall of fame.