The Oscar, Tony, SAG and BAFTA winner spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about the daunting task of playing a globe-trotting, cold-blooded killer in Peacock’s acclaimed new play.

Eddie Redmayne plays just about everything.
He’s starred in blockbuster franchises (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) and auteur dramas (The Theory of Everything), sung in top musicals (Les Misérables) and graced the stage (Red, Cabaret).
Over the course of his career, he has won an Oscar, Tony, Golden Globe, BAFTA, SAG and two Olivier Awards, among many others.

But after his most recent acclaimed performance as a ruthless killer in Peacock’s The Jackal, something strange happened that even Redmayne couldn’t have predicted. “People were talking about how much it was going on,” Redmayne told The Hollywood Reporter of the global buzz surrounding the film in the weeks and months following its November 2024 release. “When you make a film, especially one that’s streaming, there’s never a moment that everybody can see. What struck me about the release of The Day of the Jackal – it started out as a one-time slot and then became a weekly show – was that it became coffee break talk. I was stopped in the street by people who just wanted to ask deeper questions. It’s rare to have such an open conversation, and it’s really exciting. I love it and love that people are still talking about it.”

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Six months later, people are still talking about it.

Based on the acclaimed 1971 novel by Frederick Forsyth (who recently died at the age of 86), The Day of the Jackal tells the story of an invincible and deadly serious lone assassin known as The Jackal, who competes for expensive tonics. After completing a high-profile mission, he meets a tenacious British intelligence officer, played by Lashana Lynch.

What follows is a cat-and-mouse game across Europe.

The series is produced by Universal International Pictures’ Carnival Films and Sky Films, and is overseen by an executive producer team including Ronan Bennett, Gareth Namm, Nigel Marchant, Sam Hoyle, Sue Nagle, Brian Kirk and Redmayne.

Redmayne said he was “incredibly proud” of the series as his name appears on the executive producer list. “When you put your heart and soul into it, and not just act, you feel very involved. When people come up to you in the street and say they love the show, I think you hear that more than when you play a killer. I’m delighted that people have loved it so much,” he explained, adding that it was not just a vain honor. “It completely took over my heart. I was doing Cabaret in New York, but in the morning, I was working all day on editing, marketing, VFX, music, it was all there.”

Redmayne is not one to shy away from the hard work of a project that requires months of preparation to learn all the necessary skills.

“It’s an actor’s dream,” he said. I describe the series as an actor’s playground.

All the things you did as a kid that are why you get into acting, like changing your voice, doing accents, speaking different languages, changing your look, makeup, stunts, all of that, really, and this pretty intense, deep emotion.

She had it all. For me, it was
a
no-brainer.

An equally
no-brainer:
Season 2
is in the works.
“I really don’t have much to say,” Redmayne said with a laugh, before revealing that he had read some new scripts for the new batch of episodes.
“I’m really proud of the work we’ve done and I’m really looking forward to seeing if we can take it to the next level.”

Redmayne

On

The Day of the Jackal