Eddie Redmayne as the Jackal in ‘The Day of the Jackal.’ Photo Credit: Marcell Piti, Peacock.
Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne (“The Theory of Everything”) chatted about starring in “The Day of the Jackal” on Peacock, where he also serves as an executive producer.
A new spy thriller series, “The Day of the Jackal” is directed by Brian Kirk (“Game of Thrones”), and it will premiere on Peacock in the United States on November 14, 2024 with the first five episodes.
It will be followed by weekly episodes, and a double-episode finale (episodes 9 and 10) on Thursday, December 12, 2024.
Aside from Redmayne, it stars Lashana Lynch and Ursula Corbero.
Synopsis of the show
The synopsis is: A ruthless assassin, the Jackal (Eddie Redmayne) makes his living carrying out hits for the highest fee.
Following his latest kill, he meets his match in a tenacious British intelligence officer (Lashana Lynch) who starts to track down the Jackal in a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase across Europe, leaving destruction in its wake.
Redmayne on joining ‘The Day of the Jackal’
On joining this series on Peacock, Redmayne said, “It had been a film that I was brought up on. I had read the book a long time ago, but I just adored them both. It was one of those films my family would come back to almost yearly.”
“I found the idea of that character quite intriguing,” he said. “I started reading the scripts and they were so compelling and the story was so propulsive. It felt as if it was a genre we recognize yet it felt like it had a unique quality to it.”
“I just wanted to know what was going to happen next,” he admitted. “I also thought it would be a challenge from an acting point of view.”
Redmayne continued, “The idea of starting out by playing a 65-year-old German cleaner, then moving through several other guises, along with the different languages–French and Spanish–mixed with the shapeshifting, the physicality, and the prosthetics, it was an actor’s dream.
“They’re all joyful things to engage with and a massive challenge,” he acknowledged.
Redmayne opens up about his character
On playing “the Jackal,” he remarked, “There’s a certain peacocking about him. He enjoys all the elements of his job. He enjoys the planning, the chess work, and the thinking three-moves-ahead.”
“There is a great delight when those dominoes are set up and set off,” he said.
“Then, of course, the second that cascade gets disrupted and it falls apart then it’s about watching someone who’s used to having such a level of intricacy and control, watching that fumble out of control,” he elaborated.
Redmayne on learning different languages for the project
On needing to learn different languages from the project, he stated, “I don’t speak a word of German or Spanish, so that was a hilarious challenge.”
“Fortunately, I speak a little French, so that was a touch easier… I had a wonderful dialect coach–a German woman, Simone, and we worked for months on end. You’re learning it not only phonetically, but musically,” he explained.
I ended up with thousands of these voice notes,” he admitted. “I’d get it sounding alright but then once I had the prosthetic on, doing it in my voice in German looked ridiculous, playing this old chain smoker.”
“Therefore, it became about trying to throw my voice to this weird place that looked completely ridiculous when you’d say it yourself, but when you see it, it works,” he added.
His closing thoughts on ‘The Day of the Jackal’
For fans and viewers, he remarked about the series, “This feels big. The scope and the locations, the glory and indulgence of seeing beautiful parts of the world, and the globetrotting – ness feel fully realized.”
“What I loved about the original movie was that from our living rooms, we got to leap across the world with someone who seems to nip on a train or a plane as he pleases. I hope audiences enjoy going on that ride,” he concluded.
Read More: “The Day of the Jackal” review.