Prime Video's New 'John Wick Meets Killing Eve' Action Series Has A 36-Year First For Catherine Zeta-Jones

Published Sep 10, 2026, 3:59 PM EDT

Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020.

Catherine Zeta-Jones’s new show is being dubbed Killing Eve meets John Wick, but the true appeal of the series has nothing to do with its high-octane action or its chilling revenge story. First rising to prominence in the British period drama series The Darling Buds of May in 1991, Catherine Zeta-Jones soon rose to international stardom with a string of high-profile Hollywood movies. From The Phantom to The Mask of Zorro, to Entrapment, High Fidelity, Traffic, and America’s Sweethearts, the star was everywhere in the late ‘90s and early 2000s.

Of course, not all of Catherine Zeta-Jones’s movies were well received, and some, like 1999’s risible Shirley Jackson re-imagining The Haunting, were outright critical failures. However, 2002’s Chicago won Zeta-Jones an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, proving once and for all that the star had the dramatic chops to back her famous good looks. Cult classics like Intolerable Cruelty followed, but the star’s career was still plagued by under-performers like 2012’s starry jukebox musical flop Rock of Ages.

More recently, the star’s supporting roles in the Addams Family spinoff Wednesday and National Treasure: Edge of History proved that a comeback was overdue, and now the next show from the creators of Killing Eve, Kill Jackie, looks set to provide just that. A wild action thriller, Kill Jackie stars Zeta-Jones as a rich art dealer whose past as an international drug smuggler finally catches up with her when a cadre of assassins known as the Seven Demons are sent to hunt her down.

Kill Jackie Is Catherine Zeta-Jones' First High-Profile Role Using Her Welsh Accent

This plot alone sounds thrilling, and the first trailer for the series proves that Kill Jackie captures the blend of dark character comedy and propulsive bloody action that made author Nick Harkaway’s source novel The Price You Pay a critical success. However, Kill Jackie’s trailer also reveals something else, and it’s a welcome surprise that will have longtime fans of Catherine Zeta-Jones thrilled.

While Kill Jackie looks as slick and action-packed as Prime Video’s Citadel or Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the show also sees Zeta-Jones use her natural-born Welsh accent for the first time onscreen. Born in Swansea, the second-biggest city in Wales, Zeta-Jones typically disguises her instantly recognizable regional accent in both big and small screen roles. It’s a striking surprise to hear it front and center in the Kill Jackie trailer, and arguably the element that makes the project stand out in a sea of John Wick clones.

A lot of the movies and shows that borrow from the John Wick franchise’s successful formula can be fun, but the well is inarguably starting to run dry thanks to the sheer number of riffs on the successful action franchise in recent years. There was a female John Wick in Atomic Blonde, an everyman John Wick in the Nobody movies, similar plays on the premise in Gunpowder Milkshake and Kate, and even Daniel Radcliffe playing a hapless would-be John Wick in Guns Akimbo.

Is Jackie Price The Welsh John Wick?

Thus, the prospect of Zeta-Jones playing another slightly later in life action hero with a dark past that comes back to haunt her in Kill Jackie was not, necessarily, the most original premise on its own. However, the star playing the Baba Yaga of Barry Island, bringing her real accent to the screen for the first time in decades, immediately shot this upcoming series straight to the top of the must-watch list.

There are, it’s fair to say, a small handful of accents that simply don’t get enough screen time. If there are any other instances of a high-octane, bullet-ridden action thriller starring a woman in her 50s with a thick Welsh accent, then perhaps this show isn’t the innovator that it appears to be. However, more likely than not, Kill Jackie’s choice to utilize Catherine Zeta-Jones's irresistible real life accent is the biggest selling point of the upcoming novel adaptation's Killing Eve/ John Wick mashup.

Cast

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  Catherine Zeta-Jones

  Jackie Price

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  Sam

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  Sidse Babett Knudsen

  Karenina

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  The Doc