Catherine Zeta-Jones draws on people she knows in Wales for Kill Jackie role

Catherine Zeta-Jones says she drew on people she knows in Wales to play Jackie Price in Kill Jackie, bringing their humour and her Swansea accent to a character pursued by hitmen. The actor told BBC Wales that making Jackie Welsh helped her ground the role and find details she knew from her own experience. The thriller is scheduled to begin on 2 October.

It is the first role in which Zeta-Jones has used her Swansea accent, according to the BBC report, and her first time filming a drama in Wales. Those choices give the adaptation a personal connection to a place the actor knows, even though its source novel has a different central character and setting.

Humour and a tougher side of Swansea

Speaking to BBC Wales, Zeta-Jones said she had played on people she knows in Wales who are comedic. She said the accent made those qualities feel ‘funny and real and true’ to her. Her description was about the people and speech she drew on for this performance, rather than a claim about everyone from Swansea.

She also connected Jackie to what she called a tough side of Swansea. In the BBC interview, she placed that quality alongside the humour, suggesting that both informed how she approached a character with a dangerous past. Her comments explain her creative choices; they do not establish how viewers will interpret the finished performance.

From Jack in the novel to Jackie on screen

The series adapts The Price You Pay, a novel by Nick Harkaway published under the name Aidan Truhen. Zeta-Jones told the BBC that the book is set in the United States and centres on a man called Jack. For the television version, she said, the character became a woman while retaining the book character’s eccentricity.

A production announcement describes Jackie Price as a former international cocaine dealer who has spent twenty years living luxuriously and trying to remain anonymous. That life is disrupted when she learns that a group of hitmen has been hired to kill her. The premise gives context to Zeta-Jones’s account of balancing comedy with a character she associates with a tougher side of her home city.

The production announcement credits Tom Butterworth and Conor Keane with adapting the novel. It describes Kill Jackie as an eight-part series co-produced by Fremantle and Steel Springs Pictures, with Deabru Kalea Filmeak involved in production in Bizkaia. Zeta-Jones is also an executive producer, according to both the BBC report and the production announcement.

A personal detail in the thriller

Zeta-Jones told the BBC that she proposed using a Tom Jones song in a scene involving Jackie’s security system. In her account, weapons are hidden behind prints of the Welsh singer. She joked that she should text Jones to tell him about his part in the scene. It is another example of how she says she brought a Welsh reference into the production.

She also said she was surprised and pleased that some fans had noticed her use of a Welsh accent. The BBC report quoted selected comments about it, but those reactions are only individual responses. They offer no measure of broader audience opinion, particularly before the series’ scheduled start.

When the series is due

The BBC report said Kill Jackie was due to begin on 2 October 2026. The production announcement described a planned 2026 release on Prime Video in the UK and several other territories. Those are announced plans: the available reports do not establish that the series has premiered or show how its audience will respond. For now, Zeta-Jones’s account explains why Jackie sounds Welsh and why that choice matters to the actor playing her.