While fans wait for a new James Bond adventure, the 2024 TV schedule has some pretty exciting options to keep the espionage-inclined part of my mind busy. Anyone with a Peacock subscription can keep up with the exciting series adaptation of Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal. Pitting Eddie Redmayne’s titular assassin against No Time to Die cast member Lashana Lynch’s dogged MI6 agent Bianca Pullman, the series is a battle of wills between their characters. So much so that they only ever met once on the set. But, when they spoke to CinemaBlend, they revealed how they stayed “constantly aligned.”
I had the opportunity to speak with the aforementioned actors during the press day for the Peacock/Sky Atlantic production. Answering first part of the answer to my question about the co-stars' bond was the Fantastic Beasts vet himself, who definitely was in the same place as his Jackal co-star during our virtual chat. When going into the story of how their first meeting was during a “punishing” personal training session, Eddie Redmayne shared the following with CinemaBlend:
It was certainly one of the most athletic and kind of physically taxing jobs. One of the things that intrigues me about this piece is you have two obsessive brilliantly accomplished figures with deeply morally compromised [lives], who are on a one-way path to collision. And we barely met on set, but because we were producers on it, we were constantly aligned, and that's really where our friendship was forged. We may or may not share some of the obsessive qualities of our characters and meticulous attention to detail.
That sort of detail was something that Lashana Lynch was keen to chime in on, especially because she and Eddie Redmayne are not only the series leads, they’re also executive producers on the project. That sort of dedication has arguably made The Day of the Jackal one of the best Peacock series currently streaming.
That's no surprise, as Ms. Lynch's feedback fed into some details that I actually noticed when watching the action-drama series for prep. Here’s what she added in her half of the answer to the question at hand:
I do feel a lot of the post-production processes, where we really got to learn about our processes as producers, and really hear what we care about most. … Eddie has such a great eye when it comes to VFX, and aesthetic, and the grade, and how things form from its inception to what we are eventually gonna see on tv. And I have a music background and was really thoroughly interested in how we tell the story through the rhythm of the show, and creating the show's identity in terms of how we live vibrationally, through these characters and through the world that we are creating.
Seeing The Day of the Jackal as “10 small movies,” Lynch’s experiences on everything from Captain Marvel to Bob Marley: One Love could be assumed as influencing her eye for this new streaming adventure. Her ear for music is particularly noteworthy, as the first episode’s introduction involves The Jackal masquerading as an older German janitor to execute a hit, all to the tune of Radiohead’s “Everything In Its Right Place.”
That song has even featured in some of the advertising for the Ronan Bennett-created show's streaming run, and anyone who knows that tune can see why. Meanwhile, Eddie Redmayne’s thoughts on VFX and aesthetic lend the series its slick look, and potentially the smooth pacing that’s seen this series unfold over several episodes so far.
Considering that this is a globetrotting affair that’s put The Jackal into scrapes in all sorts of scenarios and settings, we’re certainly treated to a visual feast with every installment. But perhaps the move that most unifies Redmayne and Lynch’s disciplines is The Day of the Jackal’s stunning title sequence, which absolutely has a specific vibe in mind when showcasing the show’s tone. Take a look, listen for yourself below and see what comes to mind:
If that opening doesn’t look and sound like it belongs in front of one of the James Bond movies, I may as well quit this profession and become a hired gun myself. Of course, that’s only a joke, as it’d not only take me away from hyping up such series as The Day of the Jackal, it’d also prevent me from finishing the series. That aside, though, I appreciate the craftsmanship at play here and how the two leads were able to remain in sync, even though they weren't in physical proximity to each other.
If you’re in the U.S., you can watch new episodes as they drop every Thursday, exclusively on Peacock. Though if you’re looking for how to watch The Day of the Jackal outside of the States, you can check out our handy guide to get that information pretty quickly. And don't worry: you have plenty of time to catch up before the season finale, which is set to debut on December 12th.
