[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for the two-part Season 1 finale of The Day of the Jackal.]
It’d been well over a decade since Eddie Redmayne had done work on television, but he jumped in with both feet when it came to The Day of the Jackal, Peacock’s series adaptation of the Fredrick Forsyth thriller, in which he is both lead actor and executive producer.
Ahead of the two-part finale’s release, Redmayne and the series received Critics Choice and Golden Globe nominations for best actor and drama, and the actor was “thrilled” to see the show be recognized so soon.
“The process of making this series, then the post-production of it, through into getting it out into the world has been so all-consuming that I hadn’t thought beyond that,” he told TV Insider. “So honestly, it was unexpected — particularly given the series has only just tiptoed out into the world. It meant a huge deal, and given that I was such a massive fan of the original film and the book, I’m so thrilled that this iteration seems to be connecting.”
Though his on-screen character is emotionally complex, occasionally revealing the sensitivities he’s hidden behind all the hardened sniper work, it was the behind-the-scenes creative work that made this one exceptionally taxing.
“Honestly, the biggest toll on The Day of the Jackal was trying to juggle producing the piece, working on the scripts, working with all of our departments, and trying to really thread the needle of this character who, on the one hand, has this opaque enigma and yet on the other hand, is beginning to crack and express his vulnerabilities, and to make that compelling,” he explained. “Juggling the performance side with the producorial side I found the most all-consuming and probably the hardest job I’ve ever had.”
There was also a unique reward for all the effort, though. The show’s week-to-week release schedule built up the suspense and created a watercooler effect, with fan engagement that is unique to this medium.
“I get stopped by people [who are] so passionate about what’s happening next and what’s going on with it. That is something I’ve not experienced before actually with film, and it feels so lovely to feel that all of the detail of those works — the things we pulled our hair out over… those decisions, which can sometimes feel very micro but you think are important — then you hear the effect that it’s had having on people watching, and that feels great,” Redmayne said.
Marcell Piti/Carnival Film & Television
In the finale, there are plenty of those kinds of details to mine through. As Bianca (Lashana Lynch) finally identifies and tracks down the Jackal, he’s heading to his home as well — only, he has to take the scenic and deadly route. It’d probably be easier for him to just hunker down and wait out the heat instead of pushing through so many obstacles, but he’s determined. Why? To get back to Nuria, of course. But does he really truly expect her to be there when he gets home?
“I think with that phone call [he knows],” Redmayne said. “What was very complex about my [character’s] relationship with Nuria — and the extraordinary actress Úrsula, how hard her part was in this series — is that she only has a few scenes and moments in which to establish a character who is both joyful and free-spirited and happy with what her life is, yet at the same time isn’t a walkover and has kind of an extraordinary inner steel that is just being unpicked. But so much of our relationship is via telephone. We had a joke that in the posters it would be me with a gun and Lashana with a gun and Úrsula with a telephone…. And I feel that, as all of this world is imploding on him, and this is someone who is so good at remaining steely and calm in excessive situations, but after the death of the couple in the caravan, Liz and Trevor, when he makes that call to her, I feel like there is a part of his consciousness that knows that the lies have caught up with him. And I think that’s part of the desperation to get home.”
Related‘The Day of the Jackal’ Finale Recap: A Thrilling Conclusion and a Vision for Season 2
Indeed, the fate of the camping couple does seem to shake Jackal to his core. After finishing what was supposed to be his final job, he’s forced to kill a happy, harmless pair of people who apparently reminded him of his parents after promising them that he wouldn’t. Was that pledge sincere at the time?
“Yeah, I believe he was sincere in that moment. I was so thrilled that Anu Menon, our director of the last block, managed to get two such beautiful actors in those characters because it’s quite hard to come into a series that is a juggernaut moving at 100 miles an hour and to create characters that have such resonance. And Philip Jackson, who I’d worked with on My Week with Marilyn, I just think is one of the most glorious actors and kind of people. The fact that he accepted this role and came in and created this sense of — there was a paternal quality. There was something in him that again opened another [chink of armor] in the Jackal.”
They weren’t the only ones to expose the Jackal’s inner anguish. “Whether it’s Eleanor Matsuura’s Zina or whether it’s Andreas [Jessen]’s character of Rasmus, all these people that he comes into contact with show different [sides], and you start the series with this very opaque figure, and gradually you’re peeling back these layers,” Redmayne said.
As shocking as some of the deaths were, none was more jaw-dropping than that of Bianca, who, after an entire season hunting the Jackal, is taken out without much incident at all. Seeing her die so quickly and quietly is jarring, and the creatives intended it to be a nod to Hans Fred Zinneman’s 1973 movie adaptation.
“It was a balance because if you watch the original movie in which the Jackal dies — spoilers, sorry — it is so quick and ruthless, and it’s the astonishing genius of that last moment in Zinneman’s movie,” Redmayne explained. “Even though it had been decided before we started shooting that there the Jackal was potentially gonna continue, I think that Anu and the team wanted to retain something of the shock factor of the kind of the abruptness that is so unique. And yet, how do you do that whilst also paying respect to a character played so beautifully by Lashana who we’ve sat with? I remember our rehearsal day of that [episode] finding what that balance was…. That moment when he comes and momentarily kneels by her, they never meet other than these glancing moments in which their worlds played, but there is something. The Jackal, I think, has deep respect for Bianca because they are two sides of the same coin, and her tenacity and her obsession is something that he relates to. And even though it’s been a relationship that has been not tangible through meeting, it’s been one that intellectually has been — it’s the game. As she says, ‘I wanna win.’”
Though the finale is conclusive when it comes to Jackal carrying out his mission and shedding his primary tail, there’s still a major question mark left open by the ending: Is he now heading off to find Nuria? Redmayne thinks so.
“I believe he’s deeply in love with her. This guy was a lone wolf after what happened in Afghanistan. He had made a life choice that was about seclusion and solitude. And then he met this human being who opened something in him and his Achilles heel was the arrogance to believe he could juggle those two things,” he said. “Now the instability seems to be ripping him open a bit.”
The Day of the Jackal, Season 1, Streaming Now, Peacock
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