Not many people can say they know what it’s like to get smashed over the head with a lamp by Keira Knightley. But Ella Lily Hyland can. “So surreal,” says the 26-year-old Irish actor, who can be seen sparring with the Love Actually star in Netflix’s new thriller, Black Doves. In the scene, Hyland is one half of an assassin duo trying to take down Knightley’s spy, but then Ben Whishaw shows up and obliterates Hyland’s sidekick with a shotgun. Everyone ends up covered in blood and guts, and Hyland, defeated, jumps out of a window and runs away. “I brought my friend to a screening,” she says, “and right before that scene, I told him, ‘Watch me beat the s***e outta her,’ and afterwards he was like, ‘You really didn’t.’” She laughs, head in hands. “Keira completely won. I was raging, actually.”
As you can probably tell, Black Doves is not your usual espionage fare. It is zany, over the top and, frankly, nonsensical. But it’s fun. And while it’s intriguing to see Knightley and Whishaw play gun-toting killers, it’s Hyland’s deadpan performance as Williams, an east-London-hipster-slash-bloodthirsty-psychopath, that steals the show. “You’re gonna cut my c*** off, aren’t you?” Whishaw asks her as he digs into his eggs and soldiers one morning. “Not straight away,” comes her smiling reply. Later, wearing a tinsel halo on her head, Williams slits a man’s throat to the sound of “pa rum pum pum pum” from Christmas carol “The Little Drummer Boy”.
