(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Jodie Comer is quickly becoming an unstoppable force. The Liverpool-born star has gone from being a TV star in her native country to one of the most in-demand movie actors in what feels like no time at all. Considering she’s still only just getting started, the future seems incredibly bright for her.
Since her big arrival on the acting scene about a decade ago, Comer has embodied so many memorable characters. Her first big success came as Villanelle in the TV show Killing Eve, a psychotic, yet highly charismatic killer who enjoys an oddly romantic relationship with Sandra Oh’s title character. She played French noblewoman Marguerite de Carrouges in Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel, apocalypse survivor Isla in Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, and even had a brief cameo as Rey’s mother in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. However, she’ll probably want that turd stain wiped clean from her record.
Comer has already given so much to the acting world, but which fictional creations inspired her when she was young? This is precisely the question Bafta asked her and her 28 Years co-star Ralph Fiennes in an interview promoting the zombie horror. Fiennes revealed that the first character he was obsessed with as a youngster was James Bond (big shock), while his colleague provided a very, very different response.
“[The] first character that kind of stuck with me and I was maybe obsessed with was Christopher Robin in Winnie the Pooh,” she revealed. “More so because I had his haircut, close to his haircut, when I was a child. “I just loved the idea of that. I saw myself in him in some way.”
Though the famous yellow bear might have his name in the title, Christopher Robin is in many ways the protagonist of A A Milne’s cherished series of children’s stories. A young boy with a fondness for animals, Christopher uses his imagination to bring the world of the Hundred Acre Wood to life. The character is based on Milne’s own son, who really did have a collection of stuffed animals as a child. Winnie the Pooh is based on a combination of Edward, a toy bear Christopher received for his first birthday, and Winnipeg, a real black bear living in London Zoo after it was left in England by a Canadian serviceman fighting in World War I.
Milne’s stories have been adapted countless times, so Christopher Robin has been portrayed by dozens of different people across the decades. The version of the character Comer is likely referring to is from the animated Disney shorts, beginning with 1966’s Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree. He sports a very mop of brown hair, which must have looked incredible on the head of a Scouse child in the mid-1990s. In live-action terms, the character was played by Ewan McGregor in the 2018 film Christopher Robin. There’s also Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, but the less said about that, the better.
From incredibly humble beginnings idolising an animated schoolboy, Comer has come a very long way. While she probably won’t ever get the chance to play Christopher in anything, she could always bring back the haircut. We’re not sure what for, but don’t pretend you wouldn’t pay good money to see that.
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