After 'Killing Eve', Jodie Comer Found a Role That Might Be Even Darker
Jodie Comer spent four seasons on Killing Eve playing one of television's most watchable characters as a psychopathic assassin with a gift for disguise and an unsettling charm. Anyone wondering what she would do next just got their answer.
Variety announced that Comer has been cast as the lead of The Chain, an upcoming HBO limited series. She will play Rachel, described as 'a suburban mom who must consider the unthinkable when her daughter is kidnapped.'
The premise does not ease up from there. Based on Adrian McKinty's award-winning 2019 novel, The Chain follows a criminal scheme where a parent's child is kidnapped, and the only way to get them back is for the parent to kidnap another child, a cycle that continues with each new family drawn in.
The series has been granted an eight-episode order from HBO, with Damon Lindelof serving as writer, executive producer, and showrunner. It marks his first time as showrunner since his acclaimed Watchmenlimited series for the same network, which won the Emmy for outstanding limited series along with 10 other awards from 26 nominations.
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The pilot episode is being written by Lindelof, Carly Wray, and Breannah Gibson. The series will be executive produced by Michael Ellenberg and Lindsey Springer of Media Res, alongside McKinty, Shane Salerno, Gibson, and Joe Iberti.
Comer's casting places her in a dramatic shift from action to psychological horror. Where Villanelle operated outside the moral frame entirely, unbothered, even gleeful, Rachel is someone forced into impossible territory by love. It is the kind of role that asks an actor to play moral disintegration from the inside, which is precisely where Comer seems to do her best work.
For her iconic performance as Villanelle in Killing Eve, Comer won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress. She was most recently seen in the 2025 horror film28 Years Later alongside Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and will next appear in Hugh Jackman's thrillerThe Death of Robin Hood, arriving in theaters on June 19, 2026.
No premiere date for The Chain has been announced. For audiences who watched Comer dismantle a spy thriller one episode at a time, that wait is already shaping up to be a difficult one.
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This story was originally published May 20, 2026 at 1:12 PM.