Prime Video's The Assassin star Gerald Kyd looks totally different after soap role

Keeley Hawes returns to our screens tonight in Prime Video's new crime thriller The Assassin - a six-part series about retired hitwoman Julie, who reunites with her estranged son.

Written by Fleabag's Harry and Jack Williams, the series sees Julie face up to the past as her son arrives seeking answers about his father.

The Assassin features a number of established British stars - from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's Freddie Highmore to Line of Duty's Shalom Brune-Franklin. However, there's one particular character that may make viewers do a double take.

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Greek-Scottish actor Gerald Kyd takes on the role of Luka - a villager who sticks with Julie after surviving a local massacre. However, soap fans may recognise Gerald from his stint in BBC One's Casualty.

The actor took on the role of Sean Maddox in the medical drama from 1998 until 2000, marking one of his first-ever acting roles.

Sean was best known on the soap for striking up a romance with nurse Tina Seabrook (Claire Goose), before having an affair with her best friend Chloe (Jan Anderson) and impregnating her.

After leaving Casualty, Gerald took on roles in Brief Encounters, Sherlock, Silent Witness, Unforgotten, Doctor Who and more recently, The Split and Malory Towers.

Speaking ahead of the show's release, star Keeley revealed that she was left "shocked" by one particular detail in The Assassin. "[In] a show like this, you need to keep the humour, otherwise it would all become very serious very quickly," she said.

But opening up about how deadly the show proves to be for some characters, she said: "I was quite shocked at the body count... I kept thinking, 'That'll probably be pulled back', as these things sometimes are.

"You read the scripts, it's a great idea, reads really well, and then the closer you get to it, the body count gets smaller. You have to embrace that.

We have to see the human cost of that and that's important so it's not just literally ticking off bodies, and later on that does become a big part of the storyline, the human cost of the tragedy we see at the beginning."

While creators Harry and Jack added: "We lost count of the body count, which is a new one. It's called The Assassin, people are going to die.

"It's always fun, particularly the opening, there's a long shot. [Julie's] got to kill a lot of people, that just felt right for this kind of show."

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