Interview: Nathalie Emmanuel and Omar Sy on Working With John Woo on The Killer By ComingSoon Senior Movie News Editor Brandon Schreur spoke to and about . Emmanuel and Sy discussed working with John Woo on the , which is a remake of Woo’s 1989 film. “From the Oscar-winning producer of Oppenheimer, the kinetic action thriller stars Emmy nominee Nathalie Emmanuel (The Fast Saga, Game of Thrones) as Zee, a mysterious and infamous assassin known, and feared, in the Parisian underworld as the Queen of the Dead,” the synopsis for the movie reads.
“But when, during an assignment from her shadowy mentor and handler (Avatar’s Sam Worthington), Zee refuses to kill a blinded young woman (Diana Silvers; Ma, Booksmart) in a Paris nightclub, the decision will disintegrate Zee’s alliances, attract the attention of a savvy police investigator (Golden Globe nominee Omar Sy; Jurassic World franchise, Lupin), and plunge her into a sinister criminal conspiracy that will set her on a collision course with her own past.” The Killer is now streaming exclusively on Peacock. Aw, thank you.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it. I mean, yeah, it’s intense. When John Woo is like not only, ‘Do you want to make a movie with me?’ full stop, but it’s actually one of my most iconic movies and reimagine it.
You immediately feel the kind of stakes of that and how epic it is. A remake or a reimagining to happen with the originator, himself — yeah, there are no words. You know that you have to work hard and you want to be the best you can be.
The training and just throwing yourself in is just so important. Yeah, it was pretty hardcore. I still can’t quite believe it happened, to be honest.
Same, same. Still today, even though the movie is here and it’s real, it’s still really difficult to realize what happened. Like Nathalie said, we did a movie by John Woo, but it wasn’t just a movie, it was The Killer remade by John Woo.
It takes place in Paris, imagine that for me. It’s just unbelievable and I’m so grateful and proud to be part of that. To see the movie today, it’s just still difficult to realize.
I definitely rewatched it sort of before, when I first was like, ‘Oh, I’m going to take on this role.’ I think it was really just to take in this world, the energy, and to be inspired by the beautiful film that John made. I just love that performance by Chow Yun-fat.
I just got to enjoy it and then really sort of went away and made Zee her own thing. I wouldn’t want to take from something that’s so perfect in its own right. It sort of didn’t make sense for me to keep taking in that movie, but I definitely watched it just to feel inspired and remember all the things I loved about it.
And then see the things that I could bring while really creating something new for Zee and myself. Brandon Schreur has been writing about comics, movies, television shows, and all things pop culture for roughly five years. He's a lifelong cinephile who spends way, way too much money buying Blu-rays and trade paperbacks.
You can find him on twitter at @brandonschreur. Share article Related.
