“I have a Williams playlist with songs on there that really get her as a character: badass and unserious.” And Ella Lily Hyland’s character in Black Doves is exactly that. Think Nobody Speak by DJ Shadow, some dance tunes and a whole lot of Little Simz. Playing a fierce-yet-funny assassin with a blasé attitude to murder, Williams starts off going after Helen (Keira Knightley) and Sam (Ben Whishaw) but, towards the end of the series, she ends up helping them take on a huge crime syndicate (but does it in her own unbothered way). Forming one half of an assassin duo with Eleanor (Gabrielle Creevy), Williams is calm and collected while always bringing humour into the darkest of situations.

For example, there’s a moment when Williams and the rest of the gang are in Michael’s (Sam’s ex-partner) flat after she gets injured, and in his panicked state, Michael offers Williams sanitary pads to help bandage the wound. Her response? “If I do get the strong urge to suture myself with a fanny pad, I’ll let you know.” The stakes may be high, but both Williams and Eleanor never miss the chance to inject some lightness (as twisted as it may be) into the world of violence, espionage and murder.

“Williams is so fun and so playful but also completely mad. There was so much potential with this character and Joe’s [Barton] writing really lent itself to something very Irish, in my mind. The process was so open to who this person could be. So, it was a really playful environment to enter,” Hyland explains to me over Zoom.

Underneath the overarching plot of Black Doves is the friendship between Williams and Eleanor. It would’ve been easy to have these two characters be fairly one-dimensional or to push the story forward, but the series doesn’t do that at all. Instead, we get to see the nuance and complexities of these two women who may kill people as their jobs but are also looking for human connection. “These are two girls who value their independence but probably find it difficult to say that they need someone, and I find that really beautiful. It’s such a gorgeous dynamic between them,” says Hyland. “Gabby and I had such good craic!”

The Fifteen-Love actor adds that this connection and friendship between Williams and Eleanor is probably also due to the fact they’re both outsiders in their own worlds. “I can’t imagine either of them are girls you’d find in a girl group or at a sleepover. But with each other, they’ve found a kindred spirit of sorts, someone who speaks your language and craves the same kind of chaos that you do.”

A similar sentiment can be applied to Helen and Sam’s friendship, too. The relationship between them is complicated, but these are two people who, against all odds, always have each other’s backs. Even though he’s struggling with a horrible end to his relationship with Michael and a broken heart, Sam still comes back for Helen. And when Helen was heavily pregnant and Sam needed her as backup in a tricky situation, Helen was there in a flash. Black Doves may be a sexy and dark spy thriller, but it also has real and meaningful stories of love and friendship running throughout.

For Hyland, she’ll soon be swapping the casual attire of Williams for the old Hollywood glamour of the latest BBC Agatha Christie adaptation, Towards Zero. Set in rural England in the mid-1930s, Hyland plays Audrey Strange, the ex-wife of Nevile Strange, who finds herself at the centre of a scandalous celebrity divorce and then, a murder. “I’m so excited. It’s going to look so beautiful. I sometimes look at all of the pictures I have on my phone and I’m still blown away by how gorgeous everything is: the set design, clothes, make-up.”

As for the second season of Black Doves, it’s still early days but Hyland is excited. “Joe knows and loves all the characters so much. I’m really looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next for us.”

Images: Netflix