Jodie Comer

Jodie Comer was born on 11 March 1993 in Liverpool, England. She attended St Julie’s Catholic High School in Woolton, where a teacher encouraged her to audition for a local radio play after tonsillitis made her miss a school talent show. Her early screen credits included The Royal Today, Waterloo Road, Holby City, Doctors, Law & Order: UK, Vera, and Casualty. In 2013, she played Chloe Gemell in Channel 4’s My Mad Fat Diary, a comedy-drama adapted from Rae Earl’s book about a teenager living in 1990s Lincolnshire. The series focused on Rae Earl’s recovery from mental-health difficulties during adolescence. Comer gained wider attention as Kate Parks in BBC One’s Doctor Foster, appearing in both series of the drama about the consequences of an affair. In 2017, she portrayed Elizabeth of York in The White Princess, Starz’s miniseries adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s novel, set after the Wars of the Roses. That year she also led BBC Three’s Thirteen as Ivy Moxam, a young woman returning to her family after thirteen years in captivity. The role brought her a British Academy Television Award nomination for Best Actress in 2017, recognising her performance in the series written by Marnie Dickens for BBC. Her defining television part became Villanelle, the assassin pursued by Sandra Oh’s intelligence investigator Eve Polastri in Killing Eve. The series began in 2018, was adapted by Phoebe Waller-Bridge from Luke Jennings’s Codename Villanelle novellas, and ran for four series, ending in 2022. Comer’s performance moved between comedy, menace, disguises, and Villanelle’s shifting attachment to Eve. For the first series, she won the 2019 British Academy Television Award for Best Actress and the 2019 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She received Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress for the role in 2020 and 2021. In 2021, Comer appeared in Shawn Levy’s Free Guy as Millie Rusk, a programmer whose in-game avatar is Molotov Girl, and in Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel as Marguerite de Carrouges. The Last Duel recounts the 1386 judicial duel between Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris through competing perspectives, ultimately centering Marguerite’s account. Also that year, she played care worker Sarah in Channel 4’s Help, opposite Stephen Graham. Comer made her Broadway debut in Suzie Miller’s one-woman play Prima Facie, reprising the role of criminal barrister Tessa Ensler. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.