1. Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who developed Killing Eve for television, said that the use of "dickswab" in the opening episode may have come about because words like "fuck" were not allowed on BBC America.
2. The unusual choice of word came about after Waller-Bridge googled “dickswab” to see how common its usage was, and found a person actually called “Dick Swab.”
3. She said she chose the word “dickswab” after thinking “really, really hard” about what Eve and Bill would say to Darren Boyd’s character, Frank.
4. Eve's first scene, consisting of her screaming in the bed, was intended to be a twist on crime shows that usually open with a woman screaming.
5. Villanelle says in Episode 5 that she has a “thing for bathrooms”. Looking back, this makes sense: Multiple killings, meetings, and exchanges in the show take place in bathrooms.
6. The Killing Eve team were keen from the start to secure Sandra Oh for the main role, but were told she was unavailable. Waller-Bridge was persistent, however, and even wrote a long email to Oh’s agent stating that Eve “couldn’t be [played] by anyone else.”
7. Oh later revealed to the Hollywood Reporter that it was a combination of the script and an admiration for Waller-Bridge herself that made her accept the role.
8. And the collaboration between women on the show had a real and lasting impact on Oh.
9. Jodie Comer, who plays Villanelle, said she was “terrified” at the thought of having to speak multiple languages, but got over the hurdle by writing out the words phonetically from a tape and reading them aloud.
10. And while filming in Tuscany, she asked the Italian film crew to "tap her on the shoulder" if she got the language wrong.
11. Oh loved filming in Bucharest because of Romania's "post-Soviet way of getting things done". During filming, a vehicle being used for the show was too wide to move down a street because of parked cars in the way, so some Romanian guys lifted all of the cars in front of them on to the pavement.
12. The show was based on a series of novellas called Villanelle by Luke Jennings, which were originally self-published by the author to be read on Amazon Kindle.
13. Waller-Bridge said the biggest thrill of making this show was seeing Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer's characters walking and talking for the first time, while still writing and tweaking their parts.
14. Comer's audition consisted of the fridge scene from Episode 5. She auditioned with Oh, and as the scene involved them eating a lot of food, Oh brought in food props (including a blueberry pie) for them to use. During the audition Comer ate pretty much the whole pie.
15. Comer has several “favourite murders” from the show, including the hairpin one in Tuscany from the opening episode and the one in which her character killed a man during BDSM surgery. She told Vulture: "It was just so outrageous!"
16. The village where Villanelle tries to track down Frank is the same one where the British sitcom The Vicar of Dibley was filmed.
17. The scene in which Bill (David Haig) follows Villanelle into a club was filmed not Berlin but actually in Fabric nightclub in London.
18. And the scene in which Carolyn (Fiona Shaw) relays the story of seeing a rat drink from a can of Coke with both hands was filmed on Warwick House Street, just round the corner from Trafalgar Square.
19. Oh’s parents were so proud of her and the representation of Asian Americans in the show that they went to find a Killing Eve poster with her on it after church one Sunday.
20. And finally, Oh brought her parents with her to the Emmys. When Variety asked Mrs Oh what she thought of her daughter's groundbreaking nomination, she said: "I'm so proud of her."
