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So how long did it take you to buy into the premise of The Americans, the new FX show that premiered on Wednesday night? I’m honestly not sure I still accept — that is, can watch without an occasional snort of disbelief — Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as suburban parents/KGB agents, and I’ve seen more than one episode of the thing. But, for sure, I want to keep watching, because this series will either turn into something very special, or descend into the sort of muted, dignified camp that characterizes some would-be classy cable fare.

Russell and Rhys portray Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, Russians who’ve successfully embedded themselves as sleeper agents in a suburb of Washington, D.C. It’s 1981, President Ronald Reagan has declared the USSR an “evil empire,” and one of the Jennings’ two kids needs a training bra and wants her ears pierced. As Reagan’s reelection campaign would soon say, it’s morning in America. Continue reading ‘The Americans’ premiere review: Are you rooting for these Russians?

Tonight, FX premieres The Americans (10 p.m. ET), starring Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as a pair of Russian spies posing as married travel agents living in suburban Virginia in the year 1981.

The Cold War-era series presents an interesting challenge for costume designer Jenny Gering, who joined the show after the pilot episode (where we see Russell wearing a pair of Guess mom jeans).

“Yes, we want to create a sense of place and time and feel like we’re there, but we don’t want to have crazy clichés running around that will take you out of the story,” Gering says. Something that helps: This is the transitional early ’80s. “It’s a completely opposite silhouette to what people consider to be ‘the ’80s.’ In most people’s heads, it’s big and boxy on top and slim on the bottom, and the ’70s are more slim on top and fuller on the bottom. It was just a chance to really show women’s figures and beautiful tailoring. Everything’s very tactual — there’s a lot of leather and suede. And the palette is lovely — there’s very little black and grey, it’s very autumnal.” Continue reading ‘The Americans’ costume designer on Keri Russell’s and Matthew Rhys’ cool Cold War style

FX’s latest drama, “The Americans” (premieres tonight, Wed., Jan. 30 at 10 p.m. EST), stars Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as Elizabeth and Phillip Jennings, Cold War-era Russian spies who have lived, worked and raised a family in America for 15 years as part of a covert mission to gather intel on the Reagan administration’s plans against the Soviet Union.

The Jennings’ lives are further complicated by the defection of another K.G.B. operative, which could jeopardize every undercover agent’s identity; Phillip’s growing affection for American culture; and the unnervingly curious FBI agent (Noah Emmerich), who has just become their neighbor.

HuffPost TV sat down with Russell and Rhys at the recent Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour to find out more about what motivates their compelling characters, whether Elizabeth and Phillip’s marriage is really just a cover story, why Russell said yes to “The Americans” (since she said, “I always say no to everything”), what “honey trapping” is and much more. Continue reading ‘The Americans’ Premiere: Keri Russell And Matthew Rhys Talk Sex, Spy Games And America Vs. Russia

‘I love the idea of this suburban mom giving some dude a blow job in a hotel room and then packing school lunches’

Now that Abu Nazir is dead and Nicholas Brody is wandering around Quebec at least until September, viewers need some new duplicitous characters to shake up our TV dramas, preferably ones operating on U.S. soil. The Americans, a Homeland-meets-The Wonder Years thriller premiering Wednesday at 10 p.m. on FX, gives us Elizabeth Jennings, mom, homemaker – and KGB spy. A resolute Soviet officer living in 1981 Washington, D.C., Elizabeth has so successfully infiltrated Beltway suburbia with her impeccable accent and way around a brownie pan, even her FBI agent neighbor has no idea he’s sleeping one door down from the enemy.

Keri Russell, making a triumphant return to television after a string of successful film credits (Waitress, Mission: Impossible III and the upcoming Austenland, which recently premiered at Sundance), so deftly embodies the ruthless, ice-cold Elizabeth that from her first scene you’ll be going, “Felicity who?” Russell checked in with us recently from Brooklyn, where The Americans is filmed (“We’re about to start episode six”), to chat about going from coed to comrade. Continue reading Q&A: ‘The Americans’ Star Keri Russell on Playing the Spy Next Door