SPOILER ALERT
This article contains major character or plot details.
In Black Doves, love is a battlefield.
Helen’s (Keira Knightley) marriage is tangled up with her secret life as a spy, and Sam (Ben Whishaw) has a knack for letting his violent career path extinguish any romantic flames. And with Season 2 — now streaming on Netflix — assassin partners Eleanor (Gabrielle Creevy) and Williams (Ella Lily Hyland) face their most personal mission yet as their bickering and perfectly timed teamwork start to look like something more.
Creator, writer, and executive producer Joe Barton first imagined Williams as a Season 1 villain seeking revenge on Sam after Sam killed her partner. He hoped Gabrielle Creevy, whom he admired in In My Skin, would play Williams. But Ella Lily Hyland was such a natural fit for the role that Barton wrote Eleanor, a completely new role, for Creevy.
That shift turned Williams from a revenge-driven adversary into one half of the show’s sharp-tongued assassin team. When Creevy and Hyland finally read together, the chemistry clicked. “I could see how the two of them could be this little gang,” Barton tells Netflix, “which was a nice discovery.”
But, somewhere along the way, their professional chemistry turns personal. In Season 2, the feelings that neither one wants to acknowledge become impossible to ignore.
Of course, the duo’s big emotional breakthrough doesn’t happen over a quiet dinner. Williams and Eleanor have to work through their crossed wires while danger closes in, with one confession happening under sniper fire and the other in the middle of a shoot-out. Their first kiss also comes with a live grenade, because romance is never simple when you’re an assassin.
Hyland and Creevy talk with Tudum about the pair’s slow-burn shift from partners in crime to something much more, and the Vegas wedding they’re hoping is next for them — cowboy boots and all.
Williams and Eleanor’s chemistry was already obvious in Season 1. Did you both feel there was something romantic sitting underneath it, even then?
GABRIELLE CREEVY: I don’t know. … I don’t think so. No, I’m going to say no. A solid no. I thought in Season 1 they were just good pals.
ELLA LILY HYLAND: They care about each other. I think it’s almost like you discover it the way Joe [Barton] probably discovered it as he was writing it. It all feels very natural to unfold like that.
Why do you think these two work so well together onscreen?
CREEVY: I think humor and understanding. I also do think, strangely, the accents help. I’m so big on accent in this show. Having the Irish and Welsh accents feels amazing. I do feel like we connect strangely through how we sound. How do you feel?
HYLAND: I agree. It’s maybe a Celtic thing. I always feel like Williams can’t exist without Eleanor. I really strongly feel that. It’s like they exist because of each other, from Williams’s perspective.
And I feel like we are one entity. If Gabby’s nervous about the day, I’m nervous. If you think something hasn’t worked, I don’t think it’s worked, or vice versa. We kind of operate as one entity.
CREEVY: We are one.
HYLAND: We are one.
Gabrielle, what drew you to Eleanor, and how did the character take shape during the casting process?
CREEVY: I went in and read with a Welsh accent, and they really loved it. Then [Joe Barton] started writing Eleanor as this Welsh badass, which is brilliant.
This is the kind of show I would watch at home and be like, “I want to be in it.” I think the world Joe’s created is mental, but amazing. There’s nothing better than going to work and having so much fun. That was a massive thing for me when I read the scripts: “I can go to work and mess around, really, respectfully.”
HYLAND: It doesn’t feel like work.
CREEVY: And the cast is insane. Keira Knightley is fantastic. Ben, Ella. You’re brilliant. You’re so brilliant. I feel very lucky.
Williams was first imagined as a villain with a revenge plot. Ella, what parts of that original idea can you still see in the character, even as her story with Eleanor takes shape?
HYLAND: I suppose it did start that way. What’s interesting about Season 1 is the whole revenge thing, because she feels she wants to get back at Sam, but what she’s doing is getting involved in this new group and community without realizing that she is. What’s revealed is that she really does want connection.
I think that’s being deepened more in this storyline. It’s going more along that path of her realizing she’s not a sociopath. She actually has feelings.
We get to see another side of Williams as those feelings become harder to keep under wraps. It’s much harder for her to hide her jealousy when Eleanor dates other people. What do you think Williams is most afraid of?
HYLAND: It’s funny, because it’s not like I, as a human, would be like, “Oh, maybe it’s rejection, or maybe it’s this,” but I think she’s almost in conflict with herself.
What I find funny, and Joe wrote this way, is that as soon as she says how she feels, the next scene she begins with, “Should we make a list of pros and cons to help us decide?” Weirdly, she presumes that we’re both on board for this new thing.
That’s such a funny thing, because it’s not that she’s coming to Eleanor being like, “Oh, is she going to reject me?” She has a little bit of natural confidence and an awkwardness with the whole thing, but I think she’s like, “No, this is what I’m figuring out that I want.” The conflict is with herself as much as it is with Eleanor.
Eleanor takes a little longer to put a name to what’s happening between the two of them. She spends a lot of this season not quite looking directly at what’s in front of her. Do you think she genuinely doesn’t see it at first, or is she avoiding what it might mean?
CREEVY: Oh my gosh, she’s definitely avoiding it! She’s playing hard to get. I think she for sure has the same feelings, but is not ready to admit them. I think she sees how vulnerable Williams becomes and admires it secretly, but she loves the chase, and it’s the fun of it.
If we really want to dig into it, they don’t have families. They don’t have that love surrounding them. They don’t have anyone nurturing them. They’re kind of fighting for survival, and allowing someone in is terrifying. It takes Eleanor a minute, but she loves it.
Their most important conversations happen in the least romantic settings imaginable — under sniper fire, in a shoot-out, with a grenade in hand. Did that make those scenes more fun to play, or harder?
CREEVY: Harder. They’re fun, and they look fun, but technically they’re difficult. Listen, I don’t do many stunts. I’m a proud woman to say that.
HYLAND: You’re dying to do a stunt.
CREEVY: I’m dying to do stunts, but my character says things, and she’s there for support. Williams does all the cool stuff.
Technically, it’s difficult because you’re not just thinking about yourself. You’re thinking about your stunt double, you’re thinking about all the stunt crew who are doing these amazing things. I watch them, and I’m in awe of them. It’s really hard what they do.
HYLAND: It’s really hard.
CREEVY: To act like you’re being shot is hard. Also, you’ve got the camera. You’ve got to really respect that they’ve [the crew] got to do their job. It is really difficult. But from what I’ve seen, it looks effortless, which is what’s so cool about it.
HYLAND: Even that bit with Ambika [Mod] and Keira, [when] they’re going through the jeweler. It’s all one shot, and the amount of effort it takes to make those sequences — when you put an emotional trajectory on top of that, it’s so much.
What was your reaction when you first read the “I think I love you” scene?
HYLAND: Oh, I loved it so much — I think I giggled. I feel so endeared to them. The humor with the kind of unadulterated passion coming from a character that really didn’t have that before — I was moved by it and giddy to do it.
And the “I love you” scene. Oh my God. Then Gabby comes in and does it, bringing her amazing gifts to it. Even watching that, I want to cry. I want to cry thinking about it. I think it’s so special.
CREEVY: It is.
HYLAND: She’s [Creevy] such a classic, to be vulnerable and funny and light and natural, and I think that makes that scene. You can see it on a page, and it’s one thing, but it’s what you bring to it that makes it so special.
CREEVY: Thank you.
That moment feels like a chance to step back and think about what makes this relationship so important to them. What do you think Eleanor and Williams give each other that nobody else does?
CREEVY: For Eleanor, Williams is home. Someone who understands her for what she is. She’s so dry, but also she’s a funny girl. No one else understands her humor like Williams, but no one else sees Eleanor, really sees her.
I think Williams is a safe place in a very dangerous world, and it’s love. Even if it’s just friendship, it’s love and connection, and I don’t think she has a connection like that with anyone else.
I couldn’t tell you what exactly it is because I don’t think they really know. It’s when you vibe with someone, and you connect, and it’s like the stars are all aligned, and you’re meant to be around this person. I feel like they’ve found their person.
HYLAND: It’s so lovely. That’s very well said.
Why do you think audiences have responded so strongly to Eleanor and Williams and their evolving relationship?
CREEVY: I think you allow them in because they’re bonkers, they’re mad, but that’s what makes them so lovable. I think you root for them because of that, and there’s no filter. I think it’s refreshing to have that.
HYLAND: I agree, I think they’re entertaining. I think people aren’t one way. It’s refreshing to see that amalgamation of different vibes on a screen, because people are random.
CREEVY: That’s a good way of putting it. Not everyone is the same, and I think there are different layers to them.
Looking ahead, how do you think falling in love changes Williams and Eleanor, if at all?
HYLAND: It’s hard to say, isn’t it? I don’t think they know. They’re in this place now of uncertainty and the unknown, and it’s a new chapter for them.
CREEVY: I noticed in Season 2 that Williams is warmer. It’s amazing. Love has changed her slightly; she’s become warmer to people and lets people in. It’s really nice to see.
We’re really pushing for a Vegas marriage here. This is what we want, and I think we should give the fans what they want. Imagine this: both of them in white tuxedos, cowboy boots, and you are picking me up.
HYLAND: Or Williams in the same outfit Williams wears all the time, but Eleanor in a white tuxedo.
CREEVY: In a white tuxedo, really short fringe, cowboy boots. I think a Vegas marriage. I’m putting it out there.
Season 2 of Black Doves is now streaming on Netflix.
Watch the Black Doves Season 2 Trailer
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