Jodie Comer's assassin character helped her confidence

Jodie Comer became less self-conscious by playing an assassin.

The 25-year-old actress played the quirky killer Villanelle in Phoebe Waller-Bridge\'s new BBC thriller \'Killing Eve\' and has revealed that doing "silly things" while filming helped her to become less insecure.

In an interview with the I newspaper, she said: "I can be very self-conscious and I learned to drop that

"If there was something silly I did in a scene, I\'d be caring too much about what other people thought. The longer we went on the more free I felt."

The \'Doctor Foster\' star admitted that when she originally received the script for the eight-part drama, she wasn\'t sure she would fit into the role of an assassin.

She said: "When I first got an email from my agent saying \'assassin\', I thought oh my God, I\'m not Charlize Theron. I couldn\'t imagine myself in that role, then I read it and everything I thought it was going to be it wasn\'t.

"I was obsessed with \'Fleabag\' so I knew the script was going to be special. Phoebe dares to say things other people don\'t."

In an early scene of the show, Villanelle is seen sitting in an ice cream parlour, smiling at a child who ignores her - she continues to grin at the infant and when she finally receives a smile, she tips the little girl\'s ice cream on to her lap.

Jodie has divulged that there were times she related to her character, and she found that Villanelle\'s outrageous stunts made her entertaining to play.

She added: "To me assassins always feel unreachable, but you find yourself relating to Villanelle.

"That ice cream scene is shocking but don\'t tell me we don\'t all have those moments in our minds where we think we\'d like to do that. I was fascinated by her and she made me laugh."

The \'Killing Eve\' box set will be available on BBC iPlayer from 10pm Saturday (15.09.18).