Actor Ben Whishaw has dazzled on the stage and screen for over two decades in a career spanning many genres. He has earned acclaim as a British king in The Hollow Crown and a Danish prince in a 2004 staging of Hamlet; a lovelorn poet in literary drama Bright Star and a tech whiz in James Bond flicks Skyfall, Spectre, and No Time to Die; a dutiful doctor in series This Is Going to Hurt and the most famous Peruvian bear in the Paddington franchise. 

Now Whishaw adds a darkly comedic, chilling series to his repertoire, playing triggerman Sam in Joe Barton’s Black Doves. Whishaw was keen to take on the role after reading Barton’s script. “It was so delicious and thrilling and funny and original,” says the BAFTA, Emmy, and Golden Globe-winning actor. “I immediately loved the character of Sam.”

Sam begins the show as an assassin called back to London after years away, returning to aid his longtime friend and colleague of the Black Doves intelligence organization, Helen (Keira Knightley). Their dynamic enlivens the spy thriller and develops something wholly new. “All of the characters that would traditionally be played by men are played by women, or in the case of Sam and some of the other assassins, gay people,” says Whishaw. “There’s a subversion of some of the more traditional attitudes of the genre.”