Keeley Hawes: ‘My Amazon thriller isn’t a family show – women in their 80s love it’

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Keeley Hawes and Freddie Highmore speak to Metro about The Assassin season 2.

This isn’t a line you might expect to hear an assassin say in a TV thriller, but that’s what makes Amazon Prime Video’s The Assassin so refreshing. Despite being caught up in over-the-top criminal plots, the lead characters feel authentic – especially when the titular assassin is talking about being on hormone replacement therapy moments after beating up a horde of corrupt police officers.

Former hitwoman Julie (Keeley Hawes) is in her 50s, probably the most deadly woman you’d ever meet, and trying to salvage her relationship with her son, Edward (Freddie Highmore).

Edward is a journalist who, in season 1, was shocked to learn about his mother’s profession… as well as his true parentage. By the finale, they appeared to patch things up after previously being estranged. However, in season 2, they’re ‘back to square one’ after ‘something dramatic’ happens that shatters the trust between them, Keeley told Metro.

He’s reluctantly forced to call on his mother’s help after his wife Kayla (Shalom Brune-Franklin) is kidnapped on their honeymoon. Despite their rift, Julie will do anything to help her son and save her daughter-in-law, using every lethal skill at her disposal.

The Assassin soared up Amazon Prime Video’s charts when it premiered in 2025. It became the highest-rated UK original drama of the year according to overnights.tv, with a high of 1.6 million people watching it in the first seven days.

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While speaking to us with her on-screen son Freddie, Keeley revealed that she’s had a ‘brilliant reaction’ from viewers over her portrayal of Julie, particularly from an ‘interesting demographic’ of people.

‘Lots of my mother-in-law’s friends really love the show, and I’m talking about women in their 70s and 80s that you might not necessarily have down as fans of a show called The Assassin, but they love it,’ the Bodyguard star, 50, said.

‘I’m not sure that it’s a family…

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