Knightley says returning spy thriller 'Black Doves' balances humour, moral complexity

"Black Doves" may be packed with assassins and high-octane action sequences, but the joy of the Netflix spy thriller lies in its blend of humour and morally complex characters, Keira Knightley said at the London launch of the show's second season on Monday.

Speaking against a backdrop of fireworks over the city skyline, actor Knightley, 41, told Reuters, "It's meant to be fun, it's meant to be ridiculous, but it equally has these really interesting characters who are morally very complicated".

"I think the whole joy of the series is that both of those things exist at the same time," she added.

In the new season, spy Helen Webb, played by Knightley, juggles her double life as her husband becomes prime minister, while a conspiracy targeting her handler Mrs Reed draws her and old ally Sam Young, played by Ben Whishaw, into a dangerous mission.

Knightley and Whishaw said the season was ultimately about "very, very stressful situations", with Webb willing to do anything to protect herself and Young suffering a "slightly nervous breakdown".

New cast member Ambika Mod, who plays an assassin sent to assist Webb, said she would not usually be drawn to espionage stories but was won over by the show's subversion of genre conventions and compelling characters.

Those characters are key to the appeal of the six-part series, according to creator and writer Joe Barton, whose previous credits include Giri/Haji and The Lazarus Project. Barton said audiences end up rooting for characters who would normally be viewed as villains in a television show.

"You like them enough that you want them to succeed, even though technically they are all mass murderers, psychopaths," he said. "They should all be in jail, basically," he quipped.

The cast also celebrated the inclusion of a wider range of voices on screen. Welsh actor Gabrielle Creevy said hearing regional accents in a major television series would have made a difference to her growing up.

"I have nephews and a niece and a daughter, and I'm so excited for them that they get to hear that accent on a streamer like Netflix," she added.

During the launch event, discussion also turned briefly to another major spy franchise. Whishaw, who is known to audiences as gadget master Q in the James Bond franchise, offered his thoughts on Bond's future, saying the new team behind the films should be "really bold and free" and create something new and relevant for modern audiences.

"I think you have to reinvent it, basically," he said, adding that nobody had yet approached him about reprising the role.

Black Doves season two launches on Netflix on Thursday.