Character descriptions

Eve Polastri

Age: 41
Position: MI5 - Security.
Wants: To hunt Villanelle / to break up the monotony of her life

Eve always dreamed that she’d be working as a spy in a secret assassin-hunting department for MI5, but really she is just a desk jockey tasked with assigning protection to foreign people of interest during their trips to London.

Eve is half British but was born in Connecticut. She was fiercely ambitious growing up, but mainly to impress her father, who she adored. Always fascinated by women in crime, she excelled in her degree in criminal psychology. When her father died her momentum slightly slowed; she wasn't sure who she was trying to impress anymore. Her father’s memorial brought her back to the UK, she met Niko and never really left. Eve started at MI5 and spends her work assessing risk, yet has spent a life absent from any kind of it.

Eve is slightly disappointed in her world as it is now. She’s a little rough around the edges. She has a short temper and can be occasionally gross. Like the rest of us, when life’s not exciting, Eve just gets a bit lazy.

Struggling to find meaning in her work, Eve’s ennui is beginning to get the better of her. She doesn’t have a drug dependency problem or an unhappy domestic situation. Her husband Niko really is great. He loves Eve. So why can’t she shake a creeping sense of dissatisfaction?

Underneath her air of a woman content with her lot in life is a woman looking for trouble. To combat her boredom, Eve has secretly been tracking a new female assassin. Eve wants it all, the action, the blood, the rule breaking and the femme-fatales. But she’s beginning to realise her secret passion for the gloriously awful may be nothing but a fantasy. Until one day, her fantasy crosses her path.

Age: 26
Position: Assassin.
Wants: her expensive lifestyle… etc

Villanelle possesses a cold brutality under her innocent looking exterior. With an appetite for killing groaning in her gut, she is a living, breathing, shopping, killing psychopath. Contentedly living outside any human moral code, Villanelle kills with flare, recklessness and absolutely no conscience.

She can be adorable, playful, funny, frightening, warm, chilling, vulnerable, impenetrable… anything you want her to be. She’s naughty – she takes great pleasure in pushing the boundaries with her eternally patient handler Konstantin. As much of a goddess as she is a devil, either way, she is extraordinary. And she knows he knows this.

Paid with a lifestyle; a comfortable living expense, her own apartment and a wardrobe to literally kill for, Villanelle glides freely through the streets of Paris, an understated beauty who can be both breath-taking and anonymous.

Villanelle had nothing before she was trained to become a purpose-built killer. Her instruction is to, without enquiry, assassinate individuals around the world. She doesn’t care how many people have to die; this has bought her a lifestyle she loves.

Villanelle outwardly appears charismatic and charming, funny, polite and engaging yet she has a look in her eye that seems to go on forever...something dark that we can’t put our finger on. It’s impossible to know what she is thinking or feeling...because something is missing.

She has an impulsive side that lets her down. Her ego requires her to feel invincible and essential, and then there’s a certain kind of woman...early 40s, dark full-bodied hair, no make-up, ill-fitting clothes, a quiet kindness. Any or all of these things could tip her into orchestrating her own downfall.

In her world she is a masterful assassin with her own inimitable style. To the security services, she is a pest – and potentially a lead to the shady organisation she works for. The closer Eve gets to uncovering who Villanelle really is, the more reckless she becomes and the more her precariously curated existence starts to unravel.

Age: 55
Position: MI6 Head of Russia Desk
Mantra: “Stay friends with Russia. That is the only rule.”'

Charismatic, erudite, fiercely well read, and irreverent, Carolyn is a principled yet ruthless leader in her field. As a young agent on the ground in Moscow in the 80s she cultivated one of MI6’s most valuable assets and has since saved the world at least three times.

Naturally suspicious, a spate of un-attributable assassinations around the world has prompted her to set up a secret unit to investigate.

A literal and strategic woman, Carolyn is smart enough to know when someone has a specific talent, and is not shy about pointing out qualities, or perspectives other people have that she might lack. She sees that Eve thinks outside the box and where everyone else has dismissed her, she admires and encourages her. She herself is not a maverick, but she’s very good at hiring them.

Having set up the secret unit, Carolyn puts Eve in charge of it. She needs a group that can be invisible and work without the constraints of a typical MI6 unit.

Carolyn has formed intimate relationships with her foreign counterparts on more than one occasion, an occupational hazard. She is on to her fourth husband and her only child went to boarding school; she’s obsessed with her work.

Age: 56
Position: Villanelle’s Handler
Cover Story: Nobody knows. He is that good.

Konstantin is not afraid of anything or anyone. He has seen more broken bones and shattered spirits on his road to now than anyone would dare to imagine. He recruits and runs assassins, but none more complex and demanding than Villanelle. He understands that her ego is a beast, and he is constantly walking the tightrope of being able to manage it. He doesn’t always know who she is going to kill, he just tells her she has to.

He is an opportunist. He tells her that he is devoted to the people who order the kills and so should she be. But really he doesn't care. He just wants money and a roof over his head.

Konstantin is not a psychopath, he’s more pragmatic and self-interested than that - he does whatever he needs to do to survive. He has a slow, masculine, pace. He gives off an impression of being a little weary, but when push comes to shove he will fight for his life harder than anyone.

That said, he also has an aversion to violence - to getting his hands dirty. Which is why Villanelle’s indifference to brutality makes her his most important asset. He’s probably the closest thing Villanelle has ever had to a stable relationship. Although you wouldn’t know it to look at him, Konstantin is a family man.

He’s amused by life and by Villanelle but he’s clever enough to be frightened of her. He is the only person we meet who isn’t powerless to Villanelle’s charms. He knows her too well. After all… he did create her

Age: 45
Position: Maths teacher, bridge teacher, devoted husband
Wants: A quiet life of bridge, home cooking and eco-friendly DIY.

Eve’s husband Niko is strong, moral and appreciates the simple things in life. He was born in England to Polish immigrant parents and grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. He has an aversion to violence, and can’t understand Eve’s fascination with darkness and criminality. He’s smart, wildly compassionate and though he perhaps can’t admit it to himself, prefers his wife in a boring desk job than in close proximity to danger.

Deep down he knows there is something darker living in Eve. He dislikes her flippant humour towards violence, her fascination with assassins and how impressed she is with them; her dark-humoured jokes and her “how would you kill me and how would you dispose of my body?” chat doesn’t do it for him.

As a couple they are practical and loving. They speak regularly, tell each other everything. He is a reliable old wall, standing solidly behind her. She doesn’t even need to check behind her to know he is there… a habit she will regret.

Age: 61
Position: Head of Security Section, MI5
Special skills: Linguist, sense of humour, reads between the lines
Wants: To be able to work half as long for twice as much so he can spend more time with his baby daughter

Bill is weary. His independently wealthy wife Keiko and their newborn have run him in to the ground. He never sleeps and he sees work as a haven from home. He doesn’t want trouble, or excitement or controversy at work, he just wants life to be quiet. He ducked out of being the maverick field agent years ago. But it flickers…

He and Eve have worked together for over ten years and they have a great relationship. Bill humours Eve’s conspiracies, teases her and also dismisses them. She has been right once or twice, but when she is there is normally a whole load of bureaucratic red-tape bullshit to have to sort through, that these days, he’d rather not have to deal with. He is solid, but tired. When Eve proposes he join her in a secret assassin tracking unit with MI6, he discovers he may have some life left in him yet.

Age: 27
Position: Eve’s assistant.
Wants: to work for MI6, not MI5

A working-class girl who studied computer studies at Sheffield, Elena could easily be mistaken for a career office-worker for MI5 - but in truth she is strategically climbing the ladder until she can move sideways and become a spook. She knows she’d be brilliant at it and is moved by Eve’s blunt faith in her. She hasn’t had many champions in her life.

Eve and Elena are close. When Eve moves to the Trafalgar office Elena is the first to jump ship and join her - all for the opportunity to be close to Carolyn Martens, her idol.

She is single and loving it. Fundamentally she is a serious person with strong principles and very dry sense of humour. Her ambition is rock solid. She will not fail.

Age: 23
Position: Ex-hacker, recruited by MI6, now at Trafalgar Office
Wants: Elena

Kenny is a bonafide computer whizz, gamer, naïve, smelly, bit repellent and low on social skills but brilliant at what he does. He’d be at the top of his game if it weren’t for his impossible eccentricities. Desperate for the attention of the opposite sex but existing mainly online, he rarely gets a chance to socialise. The thought of actually dating a real woman is terrifying - better to get the take-away curries in and live with his mum.

Then he meets Elena, falls in love instantly, and completely freaks out.