Read more about Villanelle at: Wikipedia

Official Site: BBC America

Villanelle, birth name Oxana Vorontsova (in Codename Villanelle) or Oksana Astankova (in Killing Eve), is a fictional character in Luke Jennings' novel Codename Villanelle (2018), its sequels Killing Eve: No Tomorrow (2019) and Killing Eve: Die For Me (2020), and the BBC America television series adaptation Killing Eve (2018–2022) in which she is portrayed by English actress Jodie Comer. She is a psychopath assassin who works for a crime syndicate called The Twelve, and the arch-nemesis of British intelligence agent Eve Polastri. Their mutually obsessive relationship is the main focus of both the novels and the TV series.

Villanelle is the title character in Luke Jennings' four-segment novella series (2014–2016), whose compilation forms his 2018 novel Codename Villanelle. The 2018—2022 television series Killing Eve, created by British writer-actor Phoebe Waller-Bridge, is based on Jennings' novellas.

Jennings stated that he based Villanelle's character on Idoia López Riaño, a hitwoman for Basque separatist group ETA who was convicted of murdering 23 people in the 1990s. Jennings described Riaño—nicknamed La Tigresa (The Tigress) for her "legendary sexual prowess"—as a "psychopath" and "completely without empathy."

To further develop the Villanelle character for television, Waller-Bridge applied her impressions from her interview of Angela Simpson, an Arizona woman who had imprisoned, tortured and murdered a victim, and who—though affectless during the interview—afterward erupted with exuberant, giddy pride at her own performance.

Villanelle has not been a contender in any CBUB matches.