Catherine Zeta-Jones reveals why the Kill Jackie gender-switch role is so important

Having had many an iconic role over the years, Catherine Zeta-Jones feels more at home than ever in her new leading part in Prime Video's Kill Jackie.

The new revenge thriller lands on the streamer today and sees Zeta-Jones take on many an action-packed scene as an art dealer with a dangerous past who becomes the target of a squad of assassins known as The Seven Demons.

Adapted from novel The Price You Pay by Sunday Times bestselling author Nick Harkaway, which was published under his pseudonym Aidan Truhen, the series gender-flips the role of Jackie and Zeta-Jones explained to Radio Times why that was so important.

Speaking about her first impressions of the writing, Zeta-Jones said: "Well, for me, I started with a book that I read 300 pages of it without any female characters really in it at all.

"Then knowing that it was going to be switched – Jack was going to become Jackie – and that became very interesting because there was a lot of dynamics in that book, in his character, that I thought, ‘have a woman do that, and it makes it more dangerous’.

"It makes it crazier, funnier and touching in moments."

The role marks Zeta-Jones first time using her native Welsh accent on-screen, having had notable roles in the likes of The Mask of Zorro, Chicago, Entrapment and more recently in Wednesday.

Talking about her new role, Zeta-Jones said: "I was looking for something where I could kind of let loose a bit and step away from a preconception of what I would be cast in. And Jackie Price just covered it all, ticked all the boxes for me.

"Then when I decided to make her Welsh, that added another dimension that I think really solidified the fun I could have because even though I don't know international drug dealers or fraudulent art dealers who do tax evasion all that stuff, I know a character like Jackie Price from Wales, and it made it so much more real and fun – it freed me up.

"I didn't have to think of accents. I just had to think of her and what would Jackie do? I think there should be a T-shirt: what would Jackie Price do?"

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But even despite her various roles throughout Hollywood, Zeta-Jones admits that she still gets intimidated when she gets down to work.

"Well, taking on a leading role where you're kind of setting the tone and guiding the ship in a way, which you have to do if you're in it so much and you're playing the title, the character’s the name of the show," Zeta-Jones explained.

"It's always intimidating. I gotta say I always get scared. Look, I get scared the first day of shooting. I always want to reshoot the first day because I'm always like way in my own head, thinking about too many things.

"But with Jackie, I genuinely knew her and to have a role where it's so multifaceted... There's so many places to go and I knew once I found the tone and once I had the audience on my side in a way, not manipulating them but being really honest, frank and filter free, then they'd come on the journey with us.

"There, we can push the craziness, push the comedy, push the fear, push the danger, and then have a you know a Welsh personal deeper deep storyline that was never in the original book, obviously, but which helps and people understand her."

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Kill Jackie is available to watch on Prime Video from 2 October 2026. You can sign up to Prime Video for a 30-day free trial.

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