We Fulham supporters have lived through our share of suspense over the years, sitting on the edge of our seats with bated breath at many a match, so we should feel right at home watching Killing Eve.
Sean Delaney has a foot in both camps. A third generation Fulham fan, Sean also stars in the BBC’s award-laden spy drama as Kenny Stowton, the awkward hacker recruited by MI6 to work alongside the title character in their pursuit of assassin Villanelle.
“My grandad came over from Ireland to be a mechanic, and the guys he was doing his apprenticeship with were Fulham fans,” Sean tells us. “They took him along, and he fell in love with Johnny Haynes.
“It was ingrained into the family after that. I grew up in North London so there were only about four Fulham fans at my school, and two of them were me and my brother. It was a tough place to support Fulham, surrounded by Gooners and Spurs supporters.
“There were times growing up where my Dad and I couldn’t afford to go to Fulham that regularly, so my Uncle used to take me. He was hardcore Fulham. He passed away a couple of weeks after the Europa League Final, and the Club put together a chaplain service for fans who had passed in the last year. I just always thought that was the biggest testament to Fulham as a football club, that my Dad and Grandparents got to go to Craven Cottage for this service, and got to talk about how much Fulham meant to him. In terms of how much Fulham means to us as a family, that sums it up pretty well.”
With success as an actor comes a busier schedule, but Sean still finds his way to Craven Cottage as much as possible.
“This season I’ve been quite a lot,” he says. “I went to the States for work about three months into our Premier League season last year, so there were a lot of 9am starts in the Fulham bar in New York, but other than that I try to go as often as I can.
“The most emotional moment I’ve had was the Play-Off Final. I’d just spent six months in the West End doing a play called The Ferryman, and had missed a lot of games. I’d be running backstage to try and catch the scores. I had a holiday booked in Corfu after because I’d been doing six days a week for about half a year. The Final was scheduled for the last day of our holiday, so I tried to get a flight back, but there were none going. I was convinced I was going to miss it, but then last minute I managed to get a flight to Basel, and from there another one to London, landing about two hours before kick-off.
“I ran home, dropped my suitcase off, stuck on my Fulham shirt, bolted to Wembley and got there with half an hour to spare. Everything that happened in that game… it wasn’t good for anyone’s blood pressure, but I wouldn’t go back and change the sending off. That last 20 minutes was just the longest time in the world, but the pay off at the end was magic. The only thing I’ve seen close to it was probably the Hamburg game.
“My other standout memory would be Sheffield Wednesday at home [to secure the Division One title] – the Sean Davis equaliser. My early memories of the Cottage are when I was young enough that my Dad would sit me on the railings they used to have when it was all standing, at the back of H6. Davis got that equaliser right at the death, and I remember that goal going in like it was yesterday.”
And so on to the topic that any first conversation between two Fulham fans inevitably turns to; favourite players.
Prepared for the question, Sean outlines a theory: “There’s a thing about Fulham, right, where there’s two categories of player. There’s the ones that you’d pay money to see play football for any team, any day of the week, the Mousa Dembélés and Louis Sahas. I remember when we signed Mahamadou Diarra and watching his first game for us thinking, ‘oh, f***ing hell, the standard is unbelievable.’ And then there’s the people who just breathe Fulham and bleed Fulham, the Brian McBrides and Brede Hangelands. When I first starting going I remember watching Rufus Brevett and seeing how aggressive he was and how much he put his body on the line. Chris Coleman and Kit Symons were the same.
“But I think the person who fits best into both categories is Steve Finnan. I’d have to give a shout out to the Clint Dempseys and the Danny Murphys and the Mousa Dembélés, but I think Steve Finnan is probably my overall favourite player. I feel like sometimes his work ethic would overshadow how good he was, like people maybe forgot how technically gifted he was. If you combined Brian McBride’s never say die attitude with someone as talented as Mousa Dembélé, you’d probably end up with a Steve Finnan character.”
Like the rest of us, Sean is currently enduring football withdrawal – (“I think it really has exploited how important football is for a lot of people.”) – but a morale boosting statement came out of the BBC recently, revealing that the third season of Killing Eve had been brought forward a fortnight. With the previous series left on something of a cliff-hanger (again), it’s a real boost for fans of the show.
“With all this going on I thought it would be delayed if anything,” Sean admits. “It’s a weird time for everyone and people just need as much respite as they can get, and if Killing Eve coming out early does that for an hour a week, then it’s really good that we can play that part at this time.
“The stylish, cat-and-mouse traits of Killing Eve are definitely there again in this season. I’d say the emotional and personal stakes of each character get cranked up another couple of gears. It’s darker and funnier, and a lot more thrilling, this one. I think this is the most amount of personal impact you’ll see in the series to date.”
For those unfamiliar, Killing Eve focuses on the complexly layered relationship between MI6 operative Eve Polastri and the woman she’s tasked with bringing down, the international assassin known as Villanelle.
Unlike most thrillers, though, the show is packed with humour – something that Sean thinks sets it apart.
“It seems like the rule of it is if a scene is getting too dark or too gory or too emotional, they’ll tuck in a line which undercuts it all through comedy,” he explains. “It will be something really inappropriate to what’s going on, in the same way that if something’s really light hearted the whole way through, they’ll chuck in something dark to mix it up.
“It always comes at a time when people aren’t ready for it, which I think is really important. You get a lot of TV series that come and go and don’t really have much impact because they try and do a genre that someone else has done before. You’re never going to compete with The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Band of Brothers, because they’re the best in their genre. But if you put something that can fluidly move into any of them, then I think you’re winning, and personally I think that’s why people have caught on with this show so much.”
The role of Kenny is Sean’s first major role, but one which has already given him the chance to work with a stellar cast featuring the likes of Jodie Comer (Star Wars), Sandra Oh, pictured with Sean, (Grey’s Anatomy) and Fiona Shaw (Harry Potter).
“For a breakthrough gig in a TV show, to work with people who are that seasoned and that experienced is great,” he states. “I’m in this career for the long haul, and I just want to be as good as I can. And as far as an apprenticeship goes, learning from people like that on the job can only stand me in good stead. I look forward to taking what I learnt from it and applying it to stuff outside of Killing Eve.
“Kenny is a great character. I get to crank up any shyness or awkwardness that I have as a person. It’s really fun to play someone who’s petrified by any kind of social situation and isn’t quite sure how to articulate himself personally, but when it comes to intelligence or information he suddenly comes into his own. That’s his comfort zone and he can be quite eloquent and articulate.
“It’s my first recurring part in a TV series. I was really struggling, I was doing loads of temp jobs, I was doing a bit of bar work, and at that point I’d also spent 11 months working as an assistant in a new homes real estate office in Peckham on the weekends as well, which was stopping me going to Fulham, but I needed the money. And then this script came out of nowhere. I knew it was going to be really good because I’d seen Fleabag, which was also written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
“But when they’d first written it, no-one in the UK wanted the show. A small channel called BBC America in the US had taken a chance on it, so we weren’t sure if it was going to see the light of day, we weren’t sure whether people were going to be interested. And then literally overnight it suddenly became this hit. I’m really proud of it. We were just trying to make as great a TV programme as possible. The pressure’s kicked on from that first series because that was only meant to go on one channel and hopefully it would be good. And since then, since the awards have come through, it’s become a bit of a global hit, and going into a third series I’ve definitely felt the pressure of trying to maintain this great thing that we’d made.”
With the success of Fleabag and Killing Eve, creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge has become something of a national treasure, with Sean insisting she deserves every single accolade that comes her way.
“She’s brilliant. I think she’s a genius. I know that word gets thrown about a bit, but I think it’s appropriate for her. As brilliant as the ideas she has in her head are, she’s so flexible when it comes to adjusting it, or taking something that someone else is doing and applying it to what she’s written. She writes as she goes along, which has the danger element of forcing everyone to be in the moment, because things can change at any time. And I think that danger translates to the screen really well. That’s why all of her stuff, whether it’s Killing Eve or Fleabag, no matter if it’s a high or low stakes situation, you’re always on the edge of your seat because you have no idea what’s going to happen next.”
Killing Eve promo photo courtesy of BBC America.