is an author and journalist, including being the for the Observer newspaper. His were the inspiration for this year's hit drama Killing Eve. We spoke to him about seeing his characters come to life on the screen, working with screenwriter and to get a few hints about Series Two.
You've published novels for many years (including the Booker prize-nominated Atlantic). What was different about the origins and publication of the Villanelle novellas?
The previous books I'd written (for Hutchinson, Atlantic and Puffin) were all published in the conventional, hard-copy manner. In 2014 I was approached, as were a number of more or less established writers, by an editor at Amazon, who were about to launch their Kindle Singles programme. The appeal of this idea to me as an author was that work would go online, and be available for sale as soon as it was completed.
I wrote on this basis, each around 15,000 words. I thought, right from the start, that the stories would make a good TV series, and deliberately shaped the stories as 'episodes'. It was in this form that the stories and characters were optioned by a London-based production company (). It was felt that the working title of the project should be based on Eve rather than Villanelle, and I came up with "Killing Eve", which would become the actual series title.
When commissioned the first series, several publishers wanted to collect the four Villanelle titles in a single volume, and publish them in hard copy. There was an auction, won by John Murray, and in spring 2018 the first volume of a projected Killing Eve trilogy was published under the title .
Sandra Oh as Eve Polastri in Killing Eve
Would you describe your fiction writing as your ‘passion’ writing alongside ‘work’ writing? How do you divide your time between them or know which to prioritise?
I have always moved backwards and forwards between books and journalism. Each medium imposes its own constraints and disciplines. I've never prioritised one over the other.
Did you write the Villanelle stories with the idea of adaptation for television or film in the back of your mind?
I've always written that way, and I think there's a degree to which contemporary literary sensibilities have been shaped by TV and film structure.
Jodie Comer as Villanelle in Killing Eve
How did you decide on Phoebe Waller-Bridge to be the lead writer for the adaptations? What was it about her voice that made her the right person?
She was one of several writers suggested to me by , who runs Sid Gentle Films. When I saw Fleabag, then a stage play rather than the series it later became, I liked Phoebe's fearlessness and her oblique take on life. Her writing completely avoided any recognisable and hackneyed conventions which I really didn’t want to see applied to my characters and my work.
Have you ever written scripts yourself or would you consider this now?
I would consider it if it was absolutely the right project, but right now I have at least two novels to write!
Kim Bodnia and Jodie Comer in Killing Eve
Is it unusual for the writer of the original source book to be so involved in the scripting of the adaptation and if so why do you think it worked for Killing Eve?
Writing the Villanelle stories involved a lot of research, plotting, and background knowledge. I spent a long time thinking about, and creating, Eve and Villanelle, and the details of their lives and their backstories. I've reported from Russia, for example, and I've written about the security services and have a working knowledge of that world and know some of those people. This is not stuff Phoebe knew about, and we talked about all of it at length - firstly just the two of us and then, in a more structured way, with the production team. The idea was never that Phoebe should reproduce the novellas as TV scripts - TV closely tracking fiction rarely works, the two forms are just too different in their natures and requirements - but that she should make Eve and Villanelle and their universe her own, and put her own unmistakeable imprint on them.
You must be delighted with the end result, with the actors who are involved and the reaction?
Of course, and the brilliant casting is a huge part of the success of the series.
Watch a clip from Killing Eve - Eve and her team discuss the latest in Villanelle's string of murders, but this time there is a twist.
What can you tell us about Series Two which we know is in progress? Is that an original story or based on your new novel which has just come out? Are you still so directly involved or is there a point in the process where the novel writer has to step away?
Series Two is completing filming now. We are into the last episodes. The series has been scripted by , and it's terrific. It's from an original story. My second novel Killing Eve: No Tomorrow has just come out, so Emerald and I were writing, in a way, in parallel. Same Eve and Villanelle, same universe, different adventures. It's not so much a question of my stepping away, as the author. I continue in my role as the person who created those characters, and Emerald and the producers continue in theirs as the people who take my idea and run with it, taking it to new places. It's a developing process. You'll be hearing more from all of us.
Watch the complete first series of Killing Eve on 主播大秀 iPlayer