The hair-rising spy drama Killing Eve drew its inspiration from the murders of real people, it has been revealed.
MI6 consultant Gordon Corera described how he was able to collaborate with the creators of the drama to give avid fans a glimpse of the world of espionage and make the narrative plausible.
The drama, which was written by actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge, follows Sandra Oh’s character Eve as she tries to catch the cunning Villanelle, played by Jodie Comer.
Corera, went on to explain that the assassination of a fragrance mogul in series one, who was killed by Villanelle by a poisonous perfume, was inspired by the killing of Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, in 2017.
The spy drama Killing Eve, which follows Sandra Oh’s character Eve as she tries to catch the cunning Villanelle, played by Jodie Comer (pictured), drew its inspiration from the murders of real people
Among the deaths the show’s creators took inspiration from was the killing of the North Korean leader’s half brother Kim Jong-nam (left). Following his death Doan Thi Huong (right) was among the two women arrested by Malaysian Police for his murder
MI6 consultant Gordon Corera collaborated with the creators of the drama to give fans a glimpse of the world of espionage
An autopsy showed the banned VX nerve agent was found on Kim’s face and in his eyes, blood, urine, clothing and bag.
He had been waiting for a flight to Macau at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia on February 13 when two women ran up to him from behind and appeared to spray an unidentified liquid on him.
Following his death, Doan Thi Huong,from Vietnam and Siti Aisyah, from Indonesia were arrested based on CCTV footage.
Speaking on the BBC’s Obsessed With… podcast Corera said: ‘It was Sally the producer who got me involved right at the start and Sally was a friend of a friend at the BBC.
‘The friend had forwarded me an email from Sally just saying ”we’re working on this show and it’s going to be a little bit different but could I meet you for a coffee and tell you about it”.
Following a meeting with the show’s producer, Corera set about helping the show’s writers in creating the world of espionage and bring a real life element to the show.
He continued: ‘I think the wildest thing I got asked to do was quite early on sitting with them and they said ”so it’s a show about assassins, it’s about killing people and Phoebe and the writers said we haven’t killed that many people ourselves but we don’t know that much about how to kill people”.
The show’s writer previously said Villanelle’s character was influenced by the U.S. killer Angela Simpson
‘I was like ”yeah” and they said could you help us come up with some ways of killing people and I was like ”ok”.’
‘So I went away and wrote this document called the Kill List which is somewhere on my laptop somewhere on my laptop. It’s basically a load of different ways to kill people, but crazy quirky ways.
‘I took some things that happened 50 years ago, some that had been in the news, some that you hear about in other places and just passed that on and of course they used some of them
‘And they gave that Killing Eve ”zing” to some of the ideas that I had and I think that’s what the writer’s are great at.’
The chilling drama, which first aired in 2018, has seen characters killed in the most gruesome and horrific ways, from a poisoned needle in the eye to choking a victim to death in an elevator.
While the BBC security correspondent did not reveal any other plots that had been inspired by the murders of real people, writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge has previously revealed that Villanelle’s character was influenced by the U.S. killer Angela Simpson.
In the spy drama Sandra Oh, who plays Eve Polastri (pictured), is left trying to catch the psychopath killer
Simpson was responsible for impaling, strangling, dismembering and burning her victim’s body.
Waller-Bridge previously told The New York Times: ‘She sounds more like a psycho than anyone has ever sounded.’
The writer recently revealed that she would like to write a role for herself in the third series of Killing Eve and see her character meet a gruesome end at the hands of Villanelle.
Speaking to The Sunday Mirror she said: ‘I was like, I am going to write myself a part so that I can be murdered by Jodie.’