David Gandy and his XK120 charm London’s creative quarter
| How charity In Place Of War channels creativity in conflict zones
| Interior designer Joyce Wang shares the latest trends in luxury
| Panasonic Jaguar Racing’s most successful year in Formula E
| Meet Jaguar’s new design director Julian Thomson
KILLING IT Luke
KILLING IT Luke Jennings, creator of the world’s favourite female assassin, explains the allure of Killing Eve’s Villanelle and how the TV adaptation of his original novellas nailed the casting Story Olly Richards When Luke Jennings first began percolating ideas for the character that would become Villanelle, the iconic assassin of the TV hit Killing Eve, he had two words in mind: “Outrageously entertaining”. While there are many other words you could use to describe her, those two are particularly apt. Both in Jennings’ original novella, Codename Villanelle, and as played by Jodie Comer in the TV adaptation, Villanelle is a character who can make you gasp in horror and roar with laughter in the same minute. A Russian orphan, plucked from prison by a secret crime syndicate and trained to become a killerto-order, Villanelle loves her job, and delights in a cat-and-mouse chase with Eve Polastri, an MI5 agent assigned to track her down. She’s easily one of the most charismatic fictional villains of the last decade. In 2013, when he began writing the first Villanelle story, Jennings was already a pretty successful novelist (his book Atlantic had even been nominated for the Booker Prize), but he wanted to write something that was designed purely to entertain, with characters that didn’t follow the typical tropes of the crime-thriller genre. That was when Villanelle appeared. “She burst fully formed into my mind,” says Jennings. “I’d been reading a lot about psychopathy. I was thinking about how someone might come to be like her; what might have happened to her as a child to make her the adult she is.” He didn’t want to create the typical screen psychopath, who operates without feeling or emotion. He read studies about psychopaths who are aware of their own psychopathy, but feel no shame in it, and theories that psychopaths can feel love or empathy but compartmentalise it. He wanted to create a character who was a terrifying murderer, but suffciently selfaware that she knew exactly who she was and made no apologies for it. In a way, he wanted to create the worst kind of monster: one without a cause or motive, who commits terrible acts simply because they love it. A number of things came together to form the DNA of Villanelle. In part, Jennings was inspired by the life of Idoia López Riaño, a commando for the Basque separatist group Eta in the 1980s. Better known as La Tigresa, she would seduce Spanish policemen, then kill them, ostensibly in the name of Basque independence. “She was fascinating to me,” says Jennings. “She was articulate and attractive, someone who could have made a successful life outside all that… She just seemed to really like the business of killing.” Jennings used that for Villanelle to model her elaborate, darkly comic murders, which are always a lot more complicated than they need to be, because she enjoys, as Jennings puts it, the business of killing. 16 / Jaguar Magazine
Interview Killer instinct Luke Jennings (facing page) says Villanelle, played by Jodie Comer (left), “burst fully formed” into his mind “I was thinking about how someone might come to be like her; what happened to her as a child to make her the adult she is” Jaguar Magazine / 17
Jaguar Magazine celebrates creativity in all its forms, with exclusive features that inspire sensory excitement, from beautiful design to cutting-edge technology.
In this issue, we explore the art of creativity from the Brazilian masters who devised the graceful art of Capoeira, to the Irish artists mixing new culture with old. You will also discover the creative line that links Victorian wallpaper to the iPhone. While the multi-talented actor and performer, Riz Ahmed, explains why it is the right time to reveal his true self to the world.
In this issue, we explore the art of creativity from the Brazilian masters who devised the graceful art of Capoeira, to the Irish artists mixing new culture with old. You will also discover the creative line that links Victorian wallpaper to the iPhone. While the multi-talented actor and performer, Riz Ahmed, explains why it is the right time to reveal his true self to the world.
David Gandy and his XK120 charm London’s creative quarter
| How charity In Place Of War channels creativity in conflict zones
| Interior designer Joyce Wang shares the latest trends in luxury
| Panasonic Jaguar Racing’s most successful year in Formula E
| Meet Jaguar’s new design director Julian Thomson
Often provocative, always creative: meet graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister
| The British woodcrafters bringing a new dimension to an age-old skill
| Sample Paul Pairet’s Michelin-starred culinary delights in Shanghai
| See how Iris van Herpen is redefining fashion technology
| Time-travel to the futuristic city of Seoul
Discover a different side to Eva Green
| Will your next taxi be a self-driven Jaguar I-PACE?
| What it takes to break a lap record at the Nürburgring Nordschleife
| The petrolheads racing in Jaguar’s new all-electric race series
| Up close with the latest special edition of the XE and XF: the 300 SPORT
A charged-up drive of the New All-Electric Jaguar I-PACE in Portugal’s Algarve
| The inside line on the creation of the revolutionary I-PACE
| Reinventing a classic: meet the E-type Concept Zero
| Fifty years of the iconic XJ saloon
| Exclusive interview with tennis star Johanna Konta
| Can supercomputers revolutionise art?
The latest issue introduces our new ‘cub’, the E-PACE compact practical sports car, which is already turning heads on the street. As we commit to electrifying every new Jaguar from 2020, we explore how pushing boundaries on track helps develop our sports cars, from writing motorsport history at Le Mans, to taking on the Nürburgring with the extreme XE SV Project 8 and being at the very cutting edge with the FIA Formula E Championship.
In this issue, we introduce a fresh new addition to the Jaguar family with the launch of the E-PACE. F1 racer Romain Grosjean reveals his passion for Jaguar while the Panasonic Jaguar Racing Team give an insight into their preparations. Plus, we get to grips with the fast-paced sport of drone racing and spend a unique day with the XF Sportbrake.
In this issue we return to top level motorsport but not in a conventional way, and by doing so accelerate the development of electric powertrains. In tandem, we introduce our Jaguar I-PACE Concept vehicle - a revolutionary new model available to reserve now for delivery in 2018.
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