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Keri Russell Teases ‘The Diplomat’ Season 4 as Emmy Buzz Builds

It’s almost 1 a.m. in Florence, Italy, where Keri Russell is nearing the end of filming for season four of The Diplomat, Netflix’s savvy political drama created by TV vet Debora Cahn. It’s been a hectic few days of night shoots across the Atlantic, but as she hops on our call, an ebullient Russell is eager to gab. “I just got home, I’ve wolfed down two bites of pasta and I’m sipping a glass of wine,” she says. “I’m ready for you.”

The Diplomat asks a lot of Russell, from intricate emotional shifts to the dense jargon of top-secret international relations, but just as she does on camera, she carries it all with a disarming ease after a long day’s work. Russell has settled into the role of Kate Wyler, a diplomat who’s been thrust to the center of a high-stakes global crisis while navigating her turbulent marriage to fellow insider Hal (Rufus Sewell) and her even more complex relationship to her own ambitions.

“There is something that you can’t manufacture when you have years of experience with people,” Russell says. “It’s like slipping on a comfortable pair of shoes. That’s the benefit of good series work.” Russell is familiar with this trajectory, which is the goal whenever embarking on a new continuing TV show. Her breakout on college drama Felicity won her a Golden Globe and lasted four seasons; before jumping into The Diplomat, she’d finished a critically lauded six-season run on FX’s Emmy-winning spy drama The Americans, where she also met her romantic partner, co-star Matthew Rhys.

Like The Americans, The Diplomat stages hefty geopolitical drama within the context of a fraught marriage. “That’s the most monumental relationship in your life, where you grow, you fail, you fuck up — for all of those exciting moments in life, those are the highs and lows,” Russell says. “I love a longform show that can explore that because you get to grow with that couple.” In The Diplomat, Kate weathers the wily Hal’s repeated betrayals while grappling with his improbable rise — at the beginning of season three, he leapfrogs her to assume the job of vice president, to Allison Janney’s hard-wired POTUS Grace Penn. By season’s end, they are separated — and the biggest secret that Hal has ever kept from her is suddenly out in the open. Continue reading Keri Russell Teases ‘The Diplomat’ Season 4 as Emmy Buzz Builds

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The Minds Behind the Shows

In the third season of the drama series, which stars Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell as an adversarial political power couple, Cahn brought in Bradley Whitford to play the husband of Allison Janney’s POTUS. The shift from one dysfunctional couple to two opened the door to a delicious dynamic between the duos, vividly captured in the scene where Whitford’s Todd cuts his hand while preparing oysters and bleeds all over them. (Marriage is a blood sport.)

From day one, Cahn has been writing sharply drawn characters that give the gifted actors plenty to play with. (In March, Russell won an Actor Award for her high-wire work as shrewd ambassador to the U.K. Kate Wyler.) And she knows just when to throw in a plot twist, as in the Season 3 finale.

“I work in a candy store,” Cahn said. “It’s wildly fun. We’re always somehow in over our heads, but we have to remind ourselves that we chose to dive into the deep end. We’re choosing to do a lot. So it’s a constant, like, stay focused but keep your peripheral vision way open, and allow yourself to take in the new ideas as they present themselves. I’m not telling the story alone. We’ve put together a company that’s telling the story. Keri and Rufus are so good, and it was great to be able to bring in actors (Janney and Whitford) who can come in at the sprint that Keri and Rufus are at. It was an absolute career peak, a dream come true.” —LS

– Photoshoots from 2026 The Wrap Show runners And Creators Issue – 2026

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Netflix’s “The Diplomat” ATAS Event

Keri attended Netflix’s FYSEE LA Presents “The Diplomat” at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on May 03, 2026 in Beverly Hills.

– Events in 2026 Netflix’s “The Diplomat” ATAS Event – May 3 2026

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SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations Presents “The Diplomat”

Keri attended the SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations Presents “The Diplomat” event at The Meryl Streep Center for Performing Artists on May 03 2026 in Los Angeles.

– Events in 2026 SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations Presents “The Diplomat” – May 3 2026

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Apple’s “Widow’s Bay” New York Premiere

Keri and MatthewRhys attended Apple TV Series “Widow’s Bay” New York Premiere on April 22.

– Events in 2026 Apple TV Series “Widow’s Bay” New York Premiere – April 22 2026

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The Diplomat on the set – April 11

Keri and Bradley Whitford filming The Diplomat outside a Turnbull & Asser store on April 11.

– Television > The Diplomat > Season 4 > On the Set > On the Set – April 9 2026

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The Diplomat on the set – April 9

Keri filming The Diplomat season 4 in St James’s Park in London on April 9.

– Television > The Diplomat > Season 4 > On the Set > On the Set – April 9 2026

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Keri Russell, Rufus Sewell, Allison Janney, and Bradley Whitford marry diplomacy with domesticity in The Diplomat.

The characters of The Diplomat couldn’t be facing a bigger crisis when the third season of the hit political drama picks up. In the preceding season finale, Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) discovered that the president of the United States had a heart attack, making Vice President Grace Penn (Allison Janney) the leader of the free world. Did we mention that Kate recently learned Grace orchestrated a terrorist plot?

“It’s second-by-second what happens, which is actually really interesting — the whole breakdown of what happens when there’s a death of a president and how important it is, how they go through all the protocol,” says Russell. The Emmy-nominated series’ return whisks Kate, her husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell), and Grace through the chaos of succession and the selection of a new VP. “If you’re playing someone who’s confident, it’s really good to get to play them absolutely rattled,” says Sewell. “You get to see another side of all of us.”

The latest season of the drama, created by Debora Cahn, delves into the underbelly of another political power couple: Grace’s husband, Todd (three-time Emmy winner Bradley Whitford), enters as the “first lady” — a moniker he begrudgingly gives himself. “Having the character of Todd come on [means] you get to see … the private-facing Grace, not just the public-facing Grace,” Janney says. “It’s so great that it’s Brad, because we have a relationship already.”

Whitford reunites with his West Wing collaborators Janney and Cahn, who began her career writing and producing the White House drama. “Shows that really hum, that resonate and become a chord, are the ones where the political issues are resonating with the personal issues,” says Whitford. “The thing that I love about this show is the diplomacy is always just amplified and resonating with what’s going on personally. I realized it the moment I saw the first episode. And that’s really fun. There’s a power dynamic. There’s negotiation.” Continue reading Keri Russell, Rufus Sewell, Allison Janney, and Bradley Whitford marry diplomacy with domesticity in The Diplomat.

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32nd Annual Actor Awards

Keri and Matthew Rhys returned to awards season together last night at the Actor Awards—formerly known as the SAG Awards—in Los Angeles. They both wore Louis Vuitton for the evening, and Russell accessorized with Buccellati jewelry. Keri won award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series for her role as Kate Wyler in The Diplomat.