The smart set’s talking about... Jeweller’s girl Emerald Fennell
NAMED after a precious stone and the daughter of a society jeweller, Emerald Fennell was always likely to follow her father into the luxury goods business.
The 33-year-old Oxford graduate (right) is, however, rapidly becoming a showbusiness gem.
After dyeing her blonde hair red to play Nurse Patsy Mount in the BBC’s hugely popular Sunday night drama Call The Midwife, Emerald — who has also found time to write four novels in the last five years — now plans to make a name for herself as a scriptwriter.
And what a way to do it! She has won the plum job of writing the script for the second series of BBC hit Killing Eve.
The critically acclaimed drama is about a beguiling, psychopathic assassin, played by Jodie Comer.
Emerald, who was educated at the Duchess of Cambridge’s £37,815-per-year alma mater, Marlborough College, is following in the footsteps of actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who adapted the first series from Luke Jennings’s Codename Villanelle novellas.
With her career going from strength to strength, and a home in Chelsea with her long-term boyfriend, the film producer Chris Vernon, Emerald would appear to have it all. But she still can’t banish her insecurities.
‘In other jobs you can have a bad day and it doesn’t matter,’ she has said. ‘In this job if that happens, then millions of people are watching everything you do and commenting on it.’
Her solution? She’s banned herself from reading anything about her work.