Ever screwed up a job interview so badly you thought you might have to change careers?

We’ve all been there. To err is human, after all. Fumbling a job interview is a fact of life. Also a relatable fact of life is getting drunk at a work function where you’re supposed to be networking – or at the very least thinking about networking – before realising that you might have to face your newfound drinking partner across the table at a job interview.

Ever been in that exact, blisteringly awkward yet quite relatable scenario before? Well, Jodie Comer has. 

The actor met Phoebe Waller-Bridge, creator and writer of Killing Eve, for the first time at an after party for the 2017 BAFTAs. It was Comer’s first time at the awards show – she’s since won one for herself for playing super-assassin Villanelle in Killing Eve – and, as a huge Fleabag fan, she made a beeline for Waller-Bridge.

“I was obsessed with Fleabag,” Comer told the Guardian. “When I saw her name attached to this, I thought ‘I’ve got to do it.’” 

Comer and Waller-Bridge’s meeting at that post-BAFTAs party was, in a word, garrulous, as after parties are so often wont to be. The two connected that night over many a drink, so much so that Comer was worried that when she auditioned for Killing Eve she had pre-emptively blown it by being too effusive.

“I was like oh my God, I was soooo drunk,” Comer said. “Like, what did I do? Have I ruined it?”

Luckily, Waller-Bridge saw in Comer something of a kindred spirit. “She rang me just before I went in for my recall and went, ‘Maaate!’ And I was like, ‘I know!’ She said, ‘We’re both in the same boat, so don’t worry.’” 

As it turns out, Waller-Bridge and Comer have become one of the great television partnerships in recent memory, and Villanelle one of the most iconic characters. Though the writer did not return to work on the second series, she is still involved on a producer level and her and Comer have a close relationship. 

Comer and Sandra Oh, who stars as Killing Eve’s Eve, are about to begin filming on the third season of the series in London later this year. Before that, it’s a summer in Boston working on the Ryan Reynolds action movie Free Guy.

But Comer isn’t all work. At the 2019 BAFTAs she celebrated her Best Actress win by drinking champagne until six in the morning with her family. “I am tired, but it’s self-inflicted,” Comer told the Guardian. “I can’t complain that I’m being overworked.”

Being busy with exciting work projects is the best kind of busy you can be. Plus, you never know which of your next great mentors you’re going to meet over a gin & tonic at a work function, like Comer and Waller-Bridge. Solid advice for us all. 

Images: Getty, BBC