Keira Knightley and ‘Black Doves’ Creator Joe Barton on Why Helen Should Have Been the One to Kill [SPOILER], That Oner and Hopes for Season 3

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SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major spoilers for “Black Doves” Season 2, now streaming on Netflix.

Keira Knightley is back as super spy Helen Webb in Season 2

of “Black Doves,” alongside Ben Whishaw as her troubled colleague Sam Young and Sarah Lancashire as her stoic spymaster Reed.

The show, created by Joe Barton, returns with plenty of action, blood and bodies as Reed goes missing, Sam makes a Faustian pact with a shady benefactor and Helen’s secret identity is almost exposed — a threat that’s all the more serious given her new role in Number 10 Downing Street now that her husband, Wallace (Andrew Buchan), has become Prime Minister.

With Season 2 out now on Netflix, Knightley and Barton sat down with Variety to discuss why the showrunner chose to focus on Reed’s backstory this season, how the series differs from Apple TV’s London spy thriller “Slow Horses” — and the one character Knightley really wanted to kill.

We still don’t know a lot about Helen’s backstory by the end of Season 1, but Season 2 focuses on Reed’s. Why did you decide to shift the focus this season?

Joe Barton: It organically came out the storytelling process of Reed’s backstory, and the idea of the sins of the past coming forward and everyone suffering for them. And I wanted to do a “Berlin in the ‘80s” spy thing.

We do get a flashback of Helen just after she’s given birth and is trying to balance parenthood, marriage, friendship and her career (one that involves killing people). How do you have such good insight into motherhood, Joe?

Barton: My partner tells me every day.

Keira Knightley: I was gonna say, I think you’ve got a front row seat to that one.

The line when Helen is lamenting having to kill Marie (Molly Chesworth), and she says “Do you know how hard it is to find a good nanny?” rang particularly true.

Knightley: [Joe] handed me the script that [said] “You’re shooting the nanny,” and I was like, “But she stays late, what the fuck are you talking about? You don’t shoot her! She never goes home — this is the childcare of dreams.” But she has taken the kids, so we do have to kill the nanny. So we did have that conversation.

There’s also the scene in which Helen is about to shoot Franz (Rainer Wöss), and her breasts start leaking because she’s still breastfeeding, which mirrors a scene in Season 1 when Helen is shooting assassins while heavily pregnant. How much are you thinking about that juxtaposition of mother and mercenary when you’re preparing for the role?

Knightley: That’s what I love about it, because life doesn’t stop just because you’ve got other stuff. I think that’s what’s lovely about the whole show, is that as heightened and — I mean this in the best way — ridiculous as the whole thing is, it equally has that very human part of it, and that’s what makes it great, in my opinion. That’s what makes it really fun, and that’s what makes it really interesting.

The heightened reality is definitely a talking point, especially now Helen is the prime minister’s wife. For example when she’s walking around without a security detail —

Barton: She doesn’t have it [in real life].

Knightley: Oh yeah, you did actually do that research.

Barton: The prime minister’s wife doesn’t get a security detail, so it’s very realistic.

I didn’t know that! What about nobody recognizing her as she’s fighting her way through Somerset House?

Knightley: She’s got a hat and glasses, come on. It’s fine!

How much are you trying to balance the action pieces with reality?

Knightley: [To Barton] How much are we balancing reality?

Barton: Well, it’s a tricky balancing act, isn’t it?

Knightley: Yes, it is.

Barton: I would say we’re not always balancing it.

Knightley: It’s a foot off the floor. A good foot off the floor, sometimes two feet off the floor.

Barton: A couple of meters off the floor! We get talked about a lot with “Slow Horses,” because obviously [they’re both] London spy shows. I think the big difference between us and them is ostensibly “Slow Horses” takes place in the real world, and I don’t think we do. There are obviously recognizable elements of the real world, but fundamentally it’s more me taking a chapter out of the James Bond or “Mission Impossible” book, where you can have these almost flights of fantasy. We have our cake and eat it too, basically.

Knightley: That’s the idea, isn’t it.

Barton: With the prime minister’s wife, my argument is always I don’t actually know what Keir Starmer’s wife looks like.

Knightley: When we were shooting, it was Keir Starmer’s wife [Starmer resigned in June], and we were all like, “Actually, I don’t know her name particularly, and I don’t know what she looks like.” So we were all very pleased about that, because we were like, “See? She could be doing anything.”

Barton: She could be a spy.

Keira, at the end of Season 1 your one request to Joe was that you wanted to kill Dani (Agnes O’Casey) because, as you said, “I don’t think it’s OK that she tried to fuck my husband and kill me on Christmas Eve.” But in Season 2, he gives that honor to Gabrielle Creevy (Eleanor) who lobs a grenade into the elevator.

Knightley: I didn’t get to, no — he made me shoot the nanny instead! I was like, “That’s not the one I want to kill. I want to kill Dani! Why didn’t you let me kill Dani? You killed Dani, and you didn’t let me do it.”

Barton: Do you know what that was? I wanted to keep Dani alive so that you could kill her, [but] it didn’t make sense to get your character there. But then I was on set with Aggie and we were talking. I was like, “I love working with you, and I think the character is so interesting and there could be more.” And she’s like, “Oh no, the thing is, I’ve just got this new job, so I wouldn’t even be available for another series.”

It’s like, huh. Catch a grenade!

You also killed off Neve Campbell, who played presidential aide Cecile. Did you consider bringing her back for another season?

Barton: I just thought it would be so shocking to do that to poor Neve.

Knightley: I didn’t see that coming. Another one bites the dust.

The scene with Ambika Mod (Laila) where you’re being chased through Somerset House was quite ambitious. What was that like to shoot?

Knightley: We didn’t have a lot of time to rehearse that sequence, and all of a sudden, Julian [Farino, the director] said, “Actually, I want to shoot it in a oner.” And me and Ambika were like, “But we haven’t learnt the fight, so how are you going to shoot it in a oner?” And [the crew] were like, “Well — good luck! We’ll just try and make it work!” So it was quite an interesting day. We did actually manage to shoot it in a oner.

How many takes did you get?

Knightley: Five.

Barton: It ended up working really well, but it wasn’t always a guarantee, was it?

Knightley: It did end up working out well. It definitely didn’t feel like a guarantee on the day that it would.

Season 1 was very much a Christmas show, and Joe said everyone felt a bit “Christmased out” by the end. This season, there’s just a little nod to Christmas at the end. Was that deliberate?

Barton: Yeah, we have bits of Christmas. We pop in and out of it.

Knightley: We were shooting over Christmas again, which meant that it was quite hard to avoid at certain points. But actually, when we finally shot in Trafalgar Square, it was post-Christmas, so we did then have to invent the Christmas tree.

Barton: We had to digitally put the tree in. The first [season] we were chasing Christmas, and this one we were running from it. The [real] tree is quite threadbare, so we were like “We could make it even nicer,” and the Norwegian government [who give the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree to the U.K. each year] were like “No, you’re not allowed to, it has to look like [the real thing].”

Oh wow. You had to get approval from the Norwegian government for the digital tree?

Barton: Yeah it has to be the same type of tree and you’re not allowed to make it too –

Knightley: — too bushy.

Is there going to be a Season 3?

Barton: I’m in a writers’ room for it at the moment, and we’re hoping.

This interview has been edited and condensed.