The show follows a suburban mum whose life is turned upside down when her daughter is kidnapped
Jodie Comer has been cast as the lead in a major new HBO thriller series from acclaimed writer Damon Lindelof. The Emmy and BAFTA award-winning star, best known for her roles in Killing Eve and 28 Years Later, will headline The Chain, a new limited series based on Adrian McKinty’s bestselling novel.
According to entertainment outlet Deadline, the thriller follows suburban mum Rachel, played by the Liverpool star, whose life is turned upside down when her daughter is kidnapped. The series is being created by Lindelof, the writer and producer behind hit shows including Lost and Watchmen.
Lindelof will serve as writer, executive producer and showrunner on The Chain, which is set to expand on the mythology of McKinty’s original novel.
The pilot script has been written by Lindelof and Carly Wray, based on a story developed alongside Breannah Gibson.
The project received a full series order from HBO in January as part of Lindelof’s ongoing overall deal with the network.
Childwall-born Jodie is likely best known for her award-winning portrayal of assassin Villanelle in BBC America’s Killing Eve, a role that earned her both an Emmy and a BAFTA TV Award. She later picked up a second BAFTA for her performance in Channel 4 drama Help in 2021.
It has only been a matter of weeks since Comer took her final bow as she finished her incredible stint as Tessa in Prime Facie. The Emmy, BAFTA, Olivier, and Tony Award–winning star returned home to Liverpool for five days of performances in March.
Jodie, who is now among the most successful faces in Hollywood, took over the Liverpool Playhouse from March 17 to 21, offering Merseyside audiences one of the most celebrated theatrical performances of the decade.
The star is also preparing for her role in new movie The Death of Robin Hood.
The 33-year-old plays healer Bridget opposite Hugh Jackman’s character in the highly-anticipated Hollywood production. Speaking to Harper’s Bazaar UK, Jodie said: “I love the character, I love what she stands for. I related to her.
“Holistic medicine, nature, those are things that I’ve become interested in. For my preparation, I read books about women and healthcare in that historical period.
“Like Bridget, I felt as if I was naturally moving into a place of looking after myself from within, and it’s about how nature provides so much of that for us. How disconnected we’ve become from that, in the West.”
Jodie heaped praise on her drama teacher for helping her deal with emotions. She said: “My emotions were very accessible to me at such a young age.
“I remember my drama teacher saying, ‘What you have is amazing, but you can’t be crying before you’ve even started’ and all this stuff was inside me and I didn’t quite know what to do with it.”
Jodie has been known to seek out complex roles in her career, she explained: “That type of material invigorates me. The work in which I am having to explore an emotion very deeply, or inhabit an experience so far from my own, or leave an experience feeling spent, like I’ve explored something I couldn’t really explain, is what propels me.”
The Death of Robin Hood will be released in UK cinemas on September 2. It will be one of the many major roles Jodie has taken on over the years. Other films she has appeared in include The End We Start From, The Last Duel and Free Guy.
