Catherine Zeta-Jones has spoken about why the Swansea-set episode of new Amazon Prime thriller Kill Jackie is her "favourite", including a touching tribute to late friend Bonnie Tyler.
The eight-part series stars Zeta-Jones as Jackie Price, a drug dealer turned art dealer hunted by a global gang of assassins. One episode is filmed and set entirely in Swansea, where the actress grew up.
A Welsh accent for Jackie
Zeta-Jones said playing the character with her own Welsh accent was a first in her career and added humour and emotion to the role.
"I know this woman, Jackie," she said. "When I decided I wanted to play her Welsh, it opened up so many emotions for me of playing such a fun character in the closest way of me speaking. And it added much more humour for me, much more emotion."
She added: "It made her real to me, because even though I don't know international drug dealers or people working in the art world where they're doing dubious tax-free things, I know this woman, Jackie."
Bonnie Tyler song in the soundtrack
The soundtrack features Welsh artists including Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, The Alarm and Tyler, whose 1984 song Here She Comes plays over the end credits of the Wales-filmed episode. Tyler, a friend of Zeta-Jones, died in July.
"The soundtrack on the show is amazing, but, you know [I said] 'we have to have this, we have to have that,'" Zeta-Jones said. "We wanted to use one of, I keep calling her Gaynor, one of Bonnie's songs, but we were trying to avoid the absolute classics, you know, the iconic ones."
After Tyler's passing, Zeta-Jones said the song "touches me now much deeper to the core". She added: "It's perfect for Jackie, it's perfect for my character, it's perfect for Wales, and her vocals on it are just incredible."
Filming in Swansea
Kill Jackie also stars Daniel Ings and is directed by Damon Thomas. It is based on the book The Price You Pay, in which Jackie Price is a man, but the team behind the series changed the character's gender.
Filming in Swansea was special for Zeta-Jones, who visited Johnnies fish and chip shop and Joe's Ice Cream. "It was great to go back to Swansea, back to streets that I remember," she said. "People know me there and the people who lived in the street where we filmed were very sweet – they were very quiet while we were shooting but then said, 'Hiya Cath'."
Kill Jackie is available to stream on Amazon Prime from October 2.
