NEW YORK, March 18 (UPI) \u2014<\/span> Anjana Vasan says Pam, the assassin she portrays on Killing Eve<\/i>, is exciting to play because she is a bit of an enigma.<\/p>\n \u201cI see Eve and Villanelle within Pam,\u201d Vasan told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n \u201cShe seems timid and not up for the job. She doesn\u2019t look like a killer, necessarily. She doesn\u2019t really enjoy it, but at the same time, there is a darkness to her. She did make the choice herself to kill her brother,\u201d the actress added.<\/p>\n \u201cThat contradiction is what\u2019s interesting, and I think that is what we will see play out as the show develops.\u201d<\/p>\n Now in its fourth and final season, with new episodes airing Sundays, the globe-spanning espionage dramedy centers on Sandra Oh, who plays Eve, a former MI5 analyst-turned-security-specialist who is drawn equally to and repelled by killer-for-hire Villanelle (Jodie Comer).\n<\/p>\n The show also features Camille Cottin as Helene, a member of the shadowy criminal enterprise, The Twelve, and the woman who recruits Pam; Kim Bodnia as Konstantin, the Russian operative who trained Villanelle and is teaching Pam how to take out human targets; and Fiona Shaw, Eve\u2019s ex-boss and the former head of MI6\u2019s Russian division, whose motives are murky as the series comes to a close.<\/p>\n Vasan was a huge Killing Eve<\/i> fan going into her audition for Pam, and would have been content if she came away from it with no more than a glimpse at what would happen in future episodes.<\/p>\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t quite believe it when I got the job,\u201d Vasan said, calling her time on the series an \u201coverwhelmingly positive\u201d experience.<\/p>\n \u201cI was a little bit intimidated at first, thinking this is a huge show with big names, and I didn\u2019t know what it would be like,\u201d she recalled. \u201cI assumed it would be this sort of machine, and it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s actually a very generous, collaborative process. That\u2019s the big takeaway for me. I really felt like I could really collaborate with the writers and other actors.\u201d<\/p>\n The fact that showrunner Laura Neal is a woman telling a story about women contributed to the positivity and sense of female power on the set, Vasan noted.\n<\/p>\n \u201cBut I feel the love also from the male directors of photography, for example,\u201d she emphasized. \u201cThe people who are involved in the show are really good at what they do. I was just enjoying how they all work.\u201d<\/p>\n Vasan described Pam as someone who is easy to underestimate. When viewers meet her, she is working as a mortician in her abusive brother\u2019s funeral home.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s one of those characters who [fits the maxim], \u2018It\u2019s the quiet ones you have to look out for.\u2019 It\u2019s an intriguing and enigmatic opening with her, and you kind of don\u2019t know where it is going to go,\u201d Vasan explained.<\/p>\n \u201cThe writers were very bold with that, slowly drawing her into the story. Laura Neal always talks about it like the origin story of an assassin because you\u2019ve seen assassins before \u2014 obviously not Villanelle \u2014 but the other assassins that The Twelve have used at some point, and they are all women. I think that is interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n Pam\u2019s storyline shows how criminals find people who are lonely and miserable, and then groom them to commit nefarious acts.<\/p>\n \u201cThat echoes the larger questions that Killing Eve discusses: Are you a natural born killer? Are you made that way? That idea of once you\u2019ve killed, can you go back and continue as if you never had? Or do you just settle, and that\u2019s your path forward, and you can\u2019t really return from that?\u201d Vasan mused.\n<\/p>\n Different power dynamics are at play regarding Pam\u2019s relationships with her brother, Elliot (Manpreet Bachu), Helene and Konstantin.<\/p>\n \u201cIn some ways, Pam is an innocent because she doesn\u2019t really know that much beyond what Helene has told her,\u201d Vasan said.<\/p>\n \u201cHer brother represents all that is going wrong with where Pam is,\u201d the actress continued. \u201cShe loves her job and she is very good at her job, but she is very isolated and she doesn\u2019t really have any friends.<\/p>\n \u201cHer parents are no longer with her and I think there is a huge cloud that\u2019s hanging over her. Helene is the only way out of that \u2014 it\u2019s the promise of something more extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n Pam sees the fashionable and confident Helene as a mentor, someone \u201cbrilliant and aspirational,\u201d Vasan said, adding that because Helene is in a higher socio-economic class, Pam assumes Helene must be right in her criminal calculations, and that whatever she is doing must be worthy.<\/p>\n The fledgling assassin is drawn in because she is flattered that she is needed by someone like Helene, Vasan said.<\/p>\n Pam\u2019s connection to Konstantin is another matter.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s fun is that you see that relationship evolving in real time,\u201d Vasan said. \u201cThey are an odd pair. Konstantin does not want to be there to train Pam, and Pam is very eager to impress and also a little intimidated by him because he is a force of nature. It\u2019s a very odd pairing come together.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Vasan learned she got the job on Killing Eve<\/i> before the first season of her sitcom, We Are Lady Parts, was released to critical acclaim. The show about female British Muslim punk rockers has been renewed for a second season.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are very, very different characters and very, very different shows. We haven\u2019t started filming yet on Season 2 of Lady Parts<\/i>. Nida Manzoor is still writing the show, so [Killing Eve] fit in and I was free,\u201d the actress said.\n<\/p>\n