If there’s one actress in Hollywood who has refused to be typecast, it is Catherine Zeta-Jones.
From swashbuckling (The Mask Of Zorro) and heist (Entrapment) to musical (Chicago), horror (The Haunting) and everything in between, Zeta-Jones has tackled just about every genre there is.
But even as she enters her fourth decade in the industry, she’s not done yet.
In fact, she’s enjoying a rejuvenation of her career – this time on television – as she gains a new generation of fans, thanks to her stint in two seasons of the Netflix hit series Wednesday, playing Morticia Addams, the mother of Wednesday Addams.
Now, she has traded goth for glam, stepping into the role of an art dealer with a dangerous past in Kill Jackie.
In this, the actress is front and centre, taking the lead in the eight-episode series.
Getting the project to take off took five years, according to Zeta-Jones, who is also an executive producer on the series.
John Wick producer Peter Lawson was the one who recommended the book The Price You Pay by British author Nick Harkaway (who wrote the 2018 novel using the pseudonym Aidan Truhen) to Zeta-Jones.
The actress read the novel and loved its crazy plot.
But there was just one problem – the protagonist was a man – Jack Price.
“So, I called (Peter) back and I said, ‘I love the book, but I presume you’re gonna make the lead a woman, otherwise I don’t know why I’ve just read a 300-page book all about a man.’
“He said that they wanted to make Jack, Jackie – so I was in!” Zeta-Jones recalled of the series’ inception.
And so Kill Jackie was born.
At the start of the series, we meet Zeta-Jones’ Jackie – an art dealer who has been living a luxurious life selling fine art to the well-heeled using sophisticated tax loopholes.
You could say she’s living la dolce vita... but it’s become predictable and a tad boring.
Well, life’s about to throw Jackie a curve ball.
A careless mistake by one of her associates sets off an unexpected chain of events, and Jackie finds herself in danger when a group of men attack her in her swanky apartment in London.
Luck is on her side as she gets out alive, only to learn that someone wants her dead – and they are paying top dollar to get the job done: They have hired the Seven Demons, an elite squad of assassins.
Jackie’s life goes from boring to bonkers as she embarks on a wild ride across London, Bilbao, San Sebastian and Wales to hunt these killers down before they get her.
Wales was a significant stop not only for Jackie, but also for Zeta-Jones, who, like her character, is Welsh.
When she agreed to come on board the project, Zeta-Jones made a request: she wanted Jackie to be Welsh.
The actress, who is married to US actor Michael Douglas, explained: “I’ve never, in the whole of my career, played a Welsh woman with a Welsh accent. I’ve never actually filmed anything in Wales.
“I’ve been all over the world and never actually filmed anything in my country.”
It filled her with pride to be able to film specifically in Swansea – a coastal town about an hour’s drive from Cardiff – where Zeta-Jones grew up.
“We filmed very close to where I went to dancing school and where my grandmother was brought up, nearby to where my aunty went to church – my childhood was all in this area.
“People know me there and the people who lived in the street where we filmed were very sweet.
“They’re genuinely proud of me. I have a very special place in my heart for Wales and the Welsh people,” said Zeta-Jones, who has two children with Douglas – Dylan, 26 and Carys, 23.
Zeta-Jones was destined for showbiz from a young age when her mother enrolled the precocious child in dancing school.
At nine, she was already booking gigs in London’s West End and continued performing in musical theatre throughout her teens.
She left school at 15 to pursue acting full time.
From the stage, she ventured into film and TV, making a name for herself in the period drama series The Darling Buds Of May.
She then decided to try her luck in Hollywood, relocating to the United States in the mid-1990s.
International fame soon followed when she starred in the blockbuster hit The Mask Of Zorro, opposite Antonio Banderas, in 1998.
The following year, she, together with Sean Connery, headlined Entrapment, which was partially shot in Malaysia.
Her dancing background came in handy when she was cast as the sexy murderess Velma Kelly in the 2002 musical Chicago, a role that would eventually earn her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
She has since worked with some of Hollywood’s biggest names, from filmmakers Steven Soderbergh and Steven Spielberg to Oscar-winning actors Tom Hanks and George Clooney.
Kill Jackie is available on BBC First (Unifi TV Ch 481) and BBC Player.
