I’m sitting in the corridor of London’s Rosewood Hotel when the door beside me opens. Out comes not Jodie Comer, the star of Jeff Nichols’s sun-soaked, sepia-toned new drama The Bikeriders and the person I’m here to meet, but her dashing co-star Austin Butler, with whom the charming Liverpudlian is currently doing press. Dressed in leather, he ruffles his hair and gives me a backwards glance, growling, “Good luck.”
Wait, I think, do I need luck? Has the famously warm, laidback, and relatable British TV staple gone all Hollywood since she graduated from the part of Killing Eve’s Villanelle to the Emmy-, Olivier-, and Tony Award-winning star of Free Guy, The Last Duel, Help, Prima Facie, and The End We Start From?
When she’s ready for me and I enter the room, it’s immediately clear that she hasn’t. Wearing an angelic floor-length white linen dress with shiny chrome silver platforms and a wonderfully beat-up, oversized black leather jacket, the 31-year-old actor is every bit as relaxed, bubbly, and playful as you’d expect—big in her gestures, quick to do funny voices, and forever getting to her feet to show you what she really means.
So is the character she embodies in this latest release: the quippy, razor-sharp Kathy, the beleaguered narrator of the ’60s Chicago-set crime saga which follows the swaggering members of the Vandals, a ramshackle motorcycle club led by Tom Hardy’s formidable Johnny and his protégé, Butler’s volatile Benny. It’s the latter whom Kathy spots in a bar and swiftly marries, turning her quiet life upside down in a blaze of motorcycle fumes, knife fights, and cigarette smoke.
Taking inspiration from Danny Lyon’s 1968 photo book The Bikeriders, the film casts Mike Faist as the photographer himself, and follows him as he interviews Kathy—as he did in real life—about her experiences with this eternally muddy, motley crew of men. As she opens up, we follow the club’s fortunes from their modest beginnings to their rapidly growing power and a profoundly tragic end.
Kathy, with her singular Midwestern twang, unbridled confidence, humor, and no-nonsense approach, is unique, but she’s also, in many ways, a classic Comer creation—someone who delights in chewing the scenery and stealing every single shot. She’s always excellent, but here, the actor takes it up yet another notch, and reminds us once again why she’s one of the most in-demand actors of her generation.
Ahead of the film landing in theaters on June 21, Comer discusses why Kathy reminded her of her nan, how she held her own on a male-dominated set, why she picked up smoking to prepare for the part (and singed her eyelashes as a result), and what she’s learning as an executive producer on a buzzy forthcoming project.
Vogue: I heard that you Zoomed with Jeff and he sent you a recording of the real Kathy’s voice. What did you make of it? Was that enough for you to know you wanted to do this?
Jodie Comer: It was. I mean, I was already in, truth be told [laughs]. I wasn’t playing it that cool. I Zoomed with Jeff while I was doing a play [Prima Facie] in London. I’d been sent the script—it wasn’t a formal offer, and he wanted to speak to me about it. I thought, Don’t get too excited. But then, I read the script and just fell in love with her on the page. A lot of Kathy’s real audio is in her dialogue. You could feel the kind of texture of her. Jeff and I chatted for over an hour and we were firing on all cylinders. Then he was like, “Just so you know, I have 30 minutes of audio of her.” I was like, “Please, for the love of God, send me that right now.” It was amazing to hear Danny, and the chaos of the kitchen, and the kids running around, and her lighting her cigarettes, and her hesitation, and her humor—all these details that we have within ourselves, but we pay no attention to. It just felt so rich. And I was like [claps], “Okay, let’s do this.”
And that recording must have been key when it came to nailing that accent.
She’s from Chicago, but her accent was such a contradiction. When I was working with my dialect coach, Victoria Hanlin, she was like, “You need to make a decision on whether you want to do a general Chicago accent or you want to do Kathy.” I was like, “Well, I want to do Kathy.” I’m sure people are going to be like [does a broad Midwestern accent], “That’s not a Chicago accent.” I can make peace with that, knowing that I wanted to do Kathy. I just loved her and I thought she had such a spirit, and that’s what I wanted to try and capture—her essence. And Jeff supported that, because he loved her as much as I did.
I read that you broke all your lines down phonetically?
Yeah! It was a lot of repetition, and breaking down every sound, and seeing what was interesting about her delivery that was different from my own. She also spoke very nasally and very quickly—she was telling you one thing and already thinking about the next thing she was going to go on to. To me, it felt like this was the first time that anybody had asked her what she thought. She lived through this thing and had likely stayed silent most of her life and bit her tongue, and here was a guy going, “Hey, Kathy, can you tell me what happened?” And she’s like, “From the beginning? Oh my God. Let’s go!” It was about trying to get all that energy and life into it, because she’s the narrator. That was something I’d never done before. I felt quite fortunate that I’d just come off the play, because Tessa in Prima Facie was narrating the whole thing, so there was that element that felt familiar. Kathy’s an amazing storyteller. As soon as you listened to her, you leaned in. And that’s what the film needed.
In that sense, I think you’ve said that she reminded you of your nan?
Yeah, in the sense of being a storyteller. It was also the charm, the mischievousness, the charisma, the warmth—there was a spirit in her that I definitely felt in my nan. Especially with more mature women from Liverpool—they’ve been around, and there’s a steadiness and a groundedness within them that I know straight away. I was like, That’s a way in. That’s something that resonates with me.
The film is, of course, inspired by Danny Lyon’s photography book The Bikeriders. I know there are only a couple of pictures of Kathy, but what did they tell you about her?
She was always stood with her legs a bit too far apart [stands up to demonstrate her stance] and her gut was always leading the way. Her pants were a little ill-fitted. Most of the women in that book are so glamorous and meticulous, and her beauty was there, but it was different. It was unkempt and messy. She was like, Here I am. I’m not trying to be anything other than myself. Her beehive always…like, she had three kids, and I imagined the kids had their sticky fingers in her hair while she’s carrying them. Another brilliant one was of her on her steps outside her house. She’s got six of the bikers around her, and she’s got shorts on and she’s got bruises all up her shins and long red nails. She always had a hot red nail. I was like, okay, so this is her—she needs these and she’s ready to conquer the world. Those things give you that depth. In the audio, she’s incredibly brash and confident, and then it felt like whenever she was having her picture taken, she was a little bit coy. You could kind of see where her vulnerability lied.
She also smokes like a chimney, and I know you tried to take up smoking while preparing for the part?
I was practicing [laughs]. When I was doing my dialect work at home, as soon as I put a cigarette in my hand, my shoulders shifted and then everything fell into place. She was smoking in every scene, and I was like, I don’t want this to feel like a prop. Because then you’re thinking about the prop and thinking about the accent. Then you’re like, I’m Jodie Comer and I’m in costume in Cincinnati, and it all becomes a bit overwhelming [laughs]. But then, at home, I lit my cigarette on a gas hob and singed my eyelashes. So, I was like, I’m not doing that again. I remember going into the make-up bus with my tail between my legs, like, “Ashley! I have no eyelashes on my left eye!”
I’m glad you were okay! Coming onto the relationship between Kathy and Benny, we rarely see them in their private moments. Did you and Austin get a chance to speak about what they’re like as a couple, away from the camera?
It’s interesting because there is this kind of intoxication and magnetism between them at the beginning. But I also feel like…I wanted more for Kathy. Don’t get me wrong, Benny showed her who he was from the very beginning. She chose to see past those things for her own enjoyment. With her relationship with Benny, I imagine he gave her very few signs of affection and love, but what he did give, she clung on to. She wants more and she’s not going to get that here. So, it’s tricky. There was a lot of mystery between them. There were scenes where I was like, What is she getting here? But there’s truth in that. We all have moments in our life when either we’re behaving that way, or someone’s behaving that way towards us, and we think: What am I doing? And you’re still there. It’s human nature. Sometimes we accept things that aren’t right for us. I could justify it because I understood why she wanted to take him away from the club, because she wanted them to be safe. She didn’t want to have to worry about him and she wanted a quieter life. But, ultimately, that’s not who he is, so it’s wrong for her to want to change him. All those things felt very real to me.
Alongside you and Austin, this film has such a great ensemble of actors, including Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, Mike Faist, and Norman Reedus. Was it always a riot being on set together?
It was amazing. We had all these incredible actors making such interesting choices, committing and being playful, but also very respectful of Jeff who was leading the way. The first scene I had was around a campfire and Michael Shannon had a monologue. And I was just like, wow. I was texting my dad that I was in a scene with him and he was like, “That’s cool, Jode. That might be the best one yet. Michael Shannon might be the peak.” [Laughs.] Being on a set like this, you just learn and observe so much.
I also wanted to touch on Kathy’s costumes, because there’s a bit of a biker influence seeping in after she meets Benny, but she’s still very distinct in her more candy-colored palettes.
She doesn’t change an awful lot. As much as she likes the excitement of this new world, I think she’s a creature of habit. Erin Benach, our costume designer, made this amazing black shirt with the Vandals logo on the back, and it had all these dainty chains. Kathy wore that in one of the images we had of her. It was almost like that was her version of the leather, but it still had that feminine touch to it. A lot of Kathy’s stuff were like jeans that were a bit ill-fitted and her tank knitwear. There was a lot of bobbling—everything she wore was so loved. She had these clothes for a very long time, and I adored that.
In the end, what was the most challenging thing about the filming process?
You know what, I came into this space and it was very male-dominated, as is Kathy’s experience, too. And I could feel myself shrinking, like I was making myself smaller. It wasn’t to deal with anyone around me, it was to deal with my relationship with myself and how I felt in that environment. That was a big learning curve for me. I needed to be conscious of it, and also embrace that side of Kathy. There’s that scene where she goes into the bar and tells Johnny how she feels—it was a lesson for me to go into these spaces and take up space and own it and be comfortable and not shrivel up for whatever reason. The other challenge was the dialogue—to make that feel fresh when there was just so much of it.
It’s been a long road to this film’s release. Are you relieved it’s finally coming out?
Definitely. It feels like a summer movie—it’s got the drama, the excitement, it’s character-driven, it has this energy to it. When I watched it for the first time, I felt so invigorated by it. I think people will enjoy it.
I also wanted to ask you about method-dressing on the press tour, which has been a hot topic after Dune: Part Two and Challengers—and this film feels especially ripe for it. Where do you stand on that?
I’m gonna leave that to Zendaya [laughs], because I don’t think anyone does it like her. I’ve been doing my baby version of it. Because Kathy didn’t get to wear any leather, I told Elizabeth Saltzman, my stylist, “I really want some leather.” I’m incredibly lucky because I have a beautiful relationship with Gabriela Hearst, so she made this mini collection for my [press] tour. There’s a lot of pieces that I’m rewearing. I’m definitely much more confident in my body now and in going out into the world and being in those situations, but it is still something where…I need to feel like myself, otherwise I can feel a bit lost.
And up next, you’ve got so much coming up: 28 Years Later with Danny Boyle, The Last Disturbance of Madeline Hynde with Kenneth Branagh, The Death of Robin Hood with Hugh Jackman. How much can you tell us?
Yes, all of the above [laughs]. I’m doing 28 Years Later at the moment, which is brilliant. Danny Boyle is the best. And then I’ve got The Last Disturbance of Madeline Hynde, and then Robin Hood early next year.
And is the Big Swiss adaptation, which you’re starring in and executive producing, still happening?
Big Swiss is in development at the moment. It’s funny, when something gets announced, I think people think it’s gonna be imminent. And even myself naively, in the past, I’ve thought, Give it a year, and it’ll be here. It’s been such an interesting process developing it and doing drafts on the script with Kayleigh Llewellyn, who’s incredible. It’s so insightful just getting to be on calls with producers who have been doing their job for a while. I come at script-reading from a more emotional and instinctive place, so to hear about what’s working structurally or what something needs or what we can take away…like, reading the script and understanding if it works or not is a skill in and of itself. So, that’s been really valuable. But, yeah, hopefully sooner rather than later because I love the book!
The Bikeriders is in theaters from June 21.
