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Everything to Know About Omar Sy, Star of John Woo's Peacock Action Film The Killer
From French movie fame to taming Jurassic World dinos, get to know the star of Peacock’s John Woo action thriller.
Action movie mastermind John Woo (Hard Target, Face/Off) has lit up Peacock with The Killer, a bold reimagining of his own slick, same-named Hong Kong classic that wowed film critics and earned Woo oodles of raves when it debuted in 1989.
Starring Fast Saga and Game of Thrones acting alum Nathalie Emmanuel alongside Jurassic World veteran Omar Sy, The Killer is now streaming exclusively on Peacock. It’s a much-awaited movie return for longtime fans of Woo, an action auteur beloved by adrenaline junkies for his distinctive, ballet-of-bullets directing style and time-shifting combat choreography.
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With the movie now streaming, now’s the perfect time to take a closer look at Sy, his role in The Killer, and all the screen places you’ve likely spotted him before.
Who is Omar Sy?
Born in the Paris suburbs in 1978, Sy was a big hit in his native France long before crossing over into Hollywood territory, where he’s lately been racking up a hot streak of successful English-speaking roles. The child of Mauritanian and Senegalese immigrants, the 46-year-old actor enjoyed an enormous breakout as the costar of 2011’s The Intouchables, a landmark French comedy-drama that earned Sy international notoriety — crowned by his Best Actor pickup at the 2012 Tokyo International Film Festival.
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What are Omar Sy's Past Movies & TV Shows?
With the wider world tuning in to his acting talent, Sy spent the 2010s stacking up a string of screen roles that nudged his star power further into the American spotlight.
In 2014, he played Bishop in X-Men: Days of Future Past, then tamed Velociraptors alongside Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) in 2015’s Jurassic World. That same year, he starred opposite Bradley Cooper in the buddy comedy Burnt, before delving deeper into blockbuster sci-fi as the voice of Hot Rod in 2017’s Transformers: The Last Knight. All the while, Sy has continued to command high-profile roles in his native French language, including his recent turn as suave thief Assane Diop in international mystery series Lupin.
Is Omar Sy married?
Sy is both a happy husband and a dad, wedded since 2007 to Hélène Sy, his longtime French sweetheart, whom he originally met while still in his teens.
Together, the couple has five children (three daughters and two sons), four of whom were born in France before the pair made their big move to Los Angeles in 2012 to keep pace with Sy’s rapidly-expanding Hollywood career. (Fun fact: Sy reportedly binged Keeping Up with the Kardashians, while also relying on a tutor, as an intensive English-speaking crash course to perfect his adopted acting language!)
Who does Omar Sy play in The Killer?
While Emmanuel leads The Killer as Zee, the movie’s criminally-hunted French assassin known in the streets as the “Queen of the Dead,” Sy co-stars as a Parisian police detective who agrees to join forces with Zee after goons from every corner of the underworld conspire to zero her out.
Speaking recently with IGN, Sy described his character in The Killer — who also happens to go by the first name of Sy — as “a loyal cop playing by his own rules to make real justice and really do it with all his heart. It’s more about instinct and feelings, you know? He’s the good guy, but sometimes he can cross the line to do what is best. That was very interesting for me.”
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Woo’s action-movie pedigree had long pinged on Sy’s personal radar, adding an extra dose of oomph to his approach once he found out he’d been cast in one of the movie’s two leading roles.
“I was a huge fan of John Woo movies, especially [the 1989 version of] The Killer,” Sy said. “It’s a classic for me and my friends, and Face/Off. John Woo changed everything with the action movie, all the slow motion, all those new ways to picture the action. But also, if you look closely with his movies, he’s a romantic guy. There are a lot small looks, chemistry between actors. It’s a lot about love, friendship, loyalty.”
How to watch Omar Sy in The Killer on Peacock
The Killer is now streaming exclusively on Peacock.
The NBCUniversal platform offers two monthly subscription plans: Premium ($7.99 a month with ads) and Premium Plus ($13.99 a month with no ads and download access for certain titles). If you're a student, you can enjoy the Premium plan for just $1.99 for an entire year!
