Jodie Comer has heard ‘silence’ from men about her award-winning sexual assault play Prima Facie

‘I imagine, for a man, it will force them to look back at their own behaviour’, said the Olivier and Tony award winner

Jodie Comer has admitted that she has received mostly “silence” from men in response to her powerful award-winning play Prima Facie.

Comer, best known for playing the antagonist Villanelle in the hit BBC series Killing Eve, made her stage debut in the London production of Prima Facie in 2022.

Inspired by author Suzie Miller’s experience as a criminal defence lawyer in sexual assault cases, the play follows Tessa, a criminal defence barrister who specialises in defending men accused of rape.

When she is raped herself, Tessa tries to get justice for her own assault, with Miller’s work driving home how the legal system consistently fails women in court.

Comer took home the 2023 Olivier Award and the Tony Award for Best Actress for her performance in the West End play and on Broadway.

However, while Comer says that she received “piles of letters” from women who shared how the play had impacted them personally, she is yet to have a “meaningful conversation” with a man about it.

Jodie Comer in the press room after winning the Best Actress award for Prima Facie at the Olivier Awards (PA)

Speaking to GQ, the 32-year-old said: “I do know there was a male police officer that came in one night, and he wrote in to the production. He was kind of saying, This is me – I see myself, and I recognise the kind of work that needs to be done as a police officer.”

Continuing Comer said: “I imagine it’s quite… confronting. I don’t know. Maybe also, when they read what it’s about, they think, Well, that’s not something that’s directed at me. I imagine, for a man, it will force them to look back at their own behaviour, which I imagine would be – or could be – potentially very uncomfortable. But it shouldn’t just be…[Sexual assault] isn’t ‘a woman’s issue’. You know what I mean?”

The actor, who won Baftas for Killing Eve and Help in 2019 and 2022 respectively, has previously said Miller’s play was “impossible to say no to”, adding she had a “guttural instinct” about signing up for the project.

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“Sometimes when things present themselves, it’s impossible to say no,” Comer explained. “This piece felt very, very clear to me. There was no hesitation that I felt. Sometimes that kind of guttural instinct really doesn’t lie.”

Jodie Comer poses in the press room with the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role in a play for "Prima Facie" at the 76th annual Tony Awards on Sunday, June 11, 2023 (Invision/AP)

Comer is set to return to the play for “one last time” for a forthcoming tour of the UK and Ireland.

The production will open in London at Richmond Theatre on 23 January 2026 before moving on to a further eight venues including Dublin, Edinburgh, and Cardiff.

Prima Facie will then move to York, Bath, Canterbury, and Birmingham before it wraps up in Comer’s hometown of Liverpool on Saturday March 21.

Tickets for the tour are already on sale.