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Everything to Know About Nathalie Emmanuel, Star of John Woo’s The Killer on Peacock
Get to know the star of Peacock’s exclusive new action thriller, who has starred in Game of Thrones and Fast X.
The countdown is officially over for Peacock’s newest movie exclusive, and it’s definitely a thrill-seeking doozy: action auteur John Woo (Face/Off, Hard Target) has landed at the NBCUniversal streaming platform for The Killer, a bold reimagining of Woo’s own 1989 Hong Kong action classic of the same name.
Nathalie Emmanuel (Game of Thrones, the Fast Saga) and Omar Sy (Jurassic World) lead the cast of The Killer as an unlikely pairing between a criminal (Emmanuel’s character) and the French cop (Sy) who usually chases down shady players like her. But circumstances conspire to bring the two close together, uniting against a wider criminal conspiracy that looms like a shadow haunting the dark streets of Paris.
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With The Killer now streaming, there’s no better time than right now to get to know more about Emmanuel, her acting career, and more fun facts about the star of John Woo’s next action epic.
Who is Nathalie Emmanuel?
Born in 1989 in the English coastal city of Southend-on-Sea, Essex, Emmanuel has been acting almost as long as she's been alive. The child of a Dominican mother and a father of mixed Saint Lucian and English ancestry, Emmanuel began taking part in school theater and musical productions without the benefit of prodigious resources — but with the support of her mother, who encouraged her from an early age to pursue her creative gifts.
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“I come from humble beginnings,” Emmanuel told an NME interviewer in 2022. “I didn’t have wealthy parents to fund my creative dreams. It’s what a lot of actors experience unless they’re lucky enough to be born into the right family.”
What are Nathalie Emmanuel's Past Movies & TV Shows?
Some of Nathalie Emmanuel's most well-known roles include performances in Game of Thrones and the Fast & Furious franchise.
Most recently seen on the small screen opposite John Travolta and Kevin Hart in Hart’s madcap action-comedy series Die Hart, Emmanuel got her acting start as a child, culminating with her star turn as Nala (at the tender age of 10!) in London’s West End stage production of The Lion King. Her TV debut in the U.K. came in 2006, as part of the soap opera cast of Hollyoaks; by 2012, she landed her first film, the British thriller Twenty8k.
Beginning in 2013, Game of Thrones fans came to expect seeing Emmanuel somewhere near Daenerys Targaryen’s side as the future queen’s royal interpreter Missandei, a role she would continue to play until Missandei's untimely demise (on the order of the jealous Cersei Lannister) in the dark fantasy series’ final season. Emmanuel’s small-screen exposure soon found a blockbuster mirror on the big screen; beginning with 2015’s Furious 7 and continuing through The Fate of the Furious (2017), F9 (2021) and Fast X (2023), she became a familiar player in the Fast Saga family as ace computer hacker Ramsey.
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In addition to her enormous star turns alongside Dom Toretto and Daenerys, Emmanuel has also been a key piece of the Maze Runner film franchise, appearing (as Harriet) in both Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015) and Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018). She’s also shown up (as Gwendoline Starr) in Zack Snyder’s 2021 heist comedy Army of Thieves; as the lead protagonist in the Dracula-inspired 2022 horror thriller The Invitation; and is set to appear this September (as Julia Cicero) in legendary director Francis Ford Coppola’s hugely anticipated sci-fi movie epic, Megalopolis.
Is Nathalie Emmanuel married?
Though Emmanuel remains single, she nevertheless seems to be happily attached. Since at least 2018, according to Heavy, she’s been in an enduring relationship with boyfriend Alex Lanipekun.
As recently as this year’s Megalopolis movie premiere at Cannes, Emmanuel continues to be spotted alongside the 43-year-old British actor, who himself starred alongside Emmanuel in Twenty8k, as well as making notable later appearances in 24: Live Another Day (2014), Homeland (2015), Troy: Fall of a City (2018), and, in what remains his most high-profile starring role for U.K. fans, the mid-2000s spy series Spooks (as junior case officer Ben Kaplan).
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Emmanuel has no children of her own, though as she’s shared on more than one occasion with her legion of Instagram followers, she’s definitely a proud and attentive auntie.
Who does Nathalie Emmanuel play in The Killer?
Emmanuel anchors The Killer as Zee, an assassin infamous enough to be known within the Paris underworld as the Queen of the Dead.
Though she’s typically respected by her criminal colleagues, Zee finds herself in the crosshairs of the city’s able hitmen after daring to spare the life of an innocent young blind woman (Jenna Silvers) — a show of compassion that puts her at odds with her hard-edged handler Finn (Sam Worthington), and, pretty much by extension, at odds with everyone else.
With Zee’s life on the line, she strikes up an unlikely partnership with a local Parisian detective named Sey (Sy, in the movie’s other leading role). Together, the pair uncover a deeper conspiracy that ultimately brings Zee face to face with lingering demons from her own past.
How to Stream The Killer on Peacock
John Woo’s The Killer 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!
