‘Killing Eve’ Star Jodie Comer Related To ‘Free Guy’ Character’s Fight Against Male-Dominated Industry
Jodie Comer plays two roles in the new movie Free Guy. In the video game world of Free City, she plays Molotov Girl, a badass hero with whom Guy (Ryan Reynolds) is smitten. Molotov Girl is actually the avatar of Millie, whom Comer also plays. After playing Villanelle on Killing Eve, Comer said she found her Free Guy characters relatable to her line of work.
Comer was part of a Zoom press conference for Free Guy on Aug. 3. She spoke about portraying the dual role, and how the gaming industry has something in common with Hollywood. Free Guy is in theaters Aug. 13.
Jodie Comer said there’s one important aspect of her ‘Free Guy’ characters
On Killing Eve, Villanelle adopts a lot of different voices and personas. Millie and Molotov Girl are really the same person. So it was important for Comer to make sure Molotov Girl was always Millie in Free Guy.
“It was a huge part of what attracted me to the piece, especially having this girl Millie and Molotov being a creation of her,” Comer said. “It was so important that it was alway an essence of Millie, but that Molotov Girl was also very, very different. I think a way in which we did that, which I really tried to focus on, was the physicality.”
Despite ‘Killing Eve,’ Jodie Comer faces a male-dominated industry
Killing Eve is a show about two women, with female writers every season. However, Comer could still relate to Millie in Free Guy. Millie was pushed out of her own game by male gaming developers. So Comer wanted to represent her independence in both characters.
“There is a lot of nuance there, especially within her world,” Comer said. “Even looking into kind of how male dominated that industry is, which is kind of similar to my own, and those kind of fights that she probably would have [and] definitely clearly was up against. And the kind of resilience in which that created in her. There was so much for me to play with.”
‘Free Guy’ is a feel-good movie with something to say
The issues Comer addressed are subtle themes of Free Guy. The main gist of the movie is a fun romp through a video game world. Comer wasn’t sure how the film’s ambition would ultimately come together, but she wanted to be a part of it when it did.
“The sheer imagination that the script had, I remember reading it and thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, how is this gonna translate onto the screen,’” Comer said. “You have the real world mixed in with the video game. So I think it was just like the scope of it, and how much heart it had. We see it written down a lot like it’s an action comedy. But I just feel like there was so much more to that. There is so much emotion and it provokes so much emotion in you. I think it was the imagination that the script had for me.”
