"The Day of the Jackal" according to Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch

If Lashana Lynch had already dealt with undercover operations and internal affairs at MI6, for Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne, it was a first. He has played a wizard who studied at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and wrote a book on fantastic animals, a man who felt like a woman in the 1930s in The Danish Girl, and recently, in theater, a clownish performer in the hit musical Cabaret. «There’s no strategy,» says the Oscar-winning actor, awarded for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything in 2015, now starring alongside Lynch in the miniseries The Day of the Jackal. «When I choose a script, it’s instinct that guides me. If reading a script gives you a kind of knot in your stomach, then you know you have to accept it. In my career, I’ve done a lot of period dramas, recently reaching the 1990s with The Good Nurse, and with The Day of the Jackal, I’ve finally arrived in the present day. You have no idea how happy I was not to have to wear a stiff collar.»

Born in London, educated at Eton College, and having studied art history at Trinity College, Cambridge, for Redmayne, the show created by Ronan Bennett is something quite distant from his past roles, unlike his colleague Lynch, who had already worked in the spy genre. Born in 1987, of Jamaican heritage, and recognized by BAFTA in 2022 as the best emerging star, Lynch played a pilot and Brie Larson’s best friend in Captain Marvel, and took on the role of 007 in the final chapter of Daniel Craig's James Bond saga, No Time to Die. This time, she plays Bianca, a British secret service agent hunting down a criminal who earns a living by taking lives on commission. «We worked on Bianca trying to make her appealing to the public, but we didn’t want to compromise her ambiguity. We needed to keep a constant question around her morality, to continually put her in doubt, as I’ve tried to do with many of the characters I’ve portrayed over the years,» explains Lashana Lynch, who, alongside Redmayne, is also among the producers of the series. She adds: «Eddie and I have a very similar production approach, shaped by conversations we’ve had with directors, teams, and other producers over time. I immersed myself in a process of discovery, whether studying Bianca’s character or observing the path Eddie was paving for his Jackal.» A true game of cat and mouse where the actors never cross paths, creating two parallel narrative paths that are, however, interconnected. A constant presence in such an evident absence.

«It was one of the strangest experiences of my life,» commented Redmayne. «We never saw each other. We met at the gym about three months before filming started, then for the rest of the show, when Lashana was in London, I was in Croatia, and when I was in Budapest, Lashana was in Croatia. Our friendship developed through the elements involved in the production. We’re both obsessive in our own ways, meticulous, and we developed a continuous dialogue that went from the scripts to editing, all the way to effects and music.» Two characters, each with their own goal, set within a story that was first a novel in 1971 by Frederick Forsyth, later adapted into a film directed by Fred Zinnemann in ’73, and again in 1997 as The Jackal directed by Michael Caton-Jones. «I grew up watching the original» says Redmayne. «When Ronan’s proposal came, I was excited because I didn’t want to ruin something I loved, but I couldn’t ignore how fresh the proposed story was, managing to keep the DNA of the original text—very old school—with a touch of elegance and sophistication that almost casually combines with the ruthlessness of the Jackal. A driving force that Lashana and I wanted to explore in its gray areas, which, for me, are the most intriguing.» And, along the way, there are also some action scenes for which Lynch drew from her experience. «Eddie and I had a guide who trained us on how to use reflections from windows and mirrors so as not to be seen, or how to film someone without being noticed,» the actress continues. «These are skills that might not serve me again, but I like the idea of accumulating skills over my career that can carry over into other projects. For example, the weapons I used in the show were similar to those for James Bond, though the way the characters approach them is entirely different.»