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On FX’s The Americans, which begins Wednesday, Keri Russell plays a Soviet sleeper agent in 1980s suburban D.C. Jace Lacob talks with the former Felicity star about Russian spies, secret lives, and being a mom.

In the opening scene of The Americans, Joe Weisberg’s tense new 1980s spy drama, Soviet sleeper agent Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell) flirts with a middle-aged stranger in a Washington, D.C., bar.

Donning a blond Pretty Woman-style wig and a short dress, Russell is nearly unrecognizable, convincingly transformed into a barfly who pretends to be turned on by a G-man’s security clearance. Elizabeth and her mark head to a hotel room, where she proceeds to seduce him in order to elicit top-secret information, engaging in a range of sexual contact that’s all recorded and later listened to by Elizabeth’s husband, Phillip (Matthew Rhys).

In other words, this is the anti-Felicity.

“Oh, yeah, blow jobs and push-up bras and wigs,” says Russell, laughing. “It’s certainly a far cry.” Continue reading Keri Russell On ‘The Americans,’ Sleeper Agents, Motherhood & More

Keri Russell gained fame playing a quintessential girl next door type on J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves’ Felicity, which perhaps makes it all the more fun to see her subvert that image in FX’s new series, The Americans. This time, Russell is playing the girl next door… who is secretly a KGB spy working to help defeat America from within in the midst of the Cold War.

Russell stars as Elizabeth Jennings, a suburbanite living with her husband, Phillip (Matthew Rhys) and their two children in 1981 Washington, D.C. But Elizabeth and Phillip are in fact deep cover KGB operatives trained since their youth to play the part of the perfect Americans, while gaining information for their Soviet superiors, in any number of ways one might associate with a spy… All while maintaining their cover as a normal, friendly family to everyone in their life, including their oblivious children.

A couple of weeks ago, I sat down with Russell to discuss her role on The Americans and her approach to this very intriguing character. Note that some spoilers follow for events that occur in the early scenes of The Americans pilot episode. Continue reading The Americans: Keri Russell on Life as a KGB Spy in Suburbia

The commercial web seals two year broadcast deal for Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys starrer with Fox.

LONDON — Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution has inked a deal with U.K. commercial network ITV for the broadcast rights to upcoming drama The Americans starring Golden Globe Award-winning actress Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys. ITV has sealed a two-year deal for the show slated to premiere on the channel “in the coming months.”

The Americans centers on the arranged marriage of two KGB spies who pose as Americans in suburban Washington, D.C. shortly after Ronald Reagan is elected President. The couple has two children who know nothing about their parents’ true identity. Tensions also heighten upon the arrival of a new neighbor, an FBI agent working in counter intelligence.

The deal was sealed by Steve Cornish, svp and managing director, Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution and Sasha Breslau, head of acquired series for ITV.

Cornish said: “We have had a huge response to the show from international broadcasters since we launched it at MIPCOM and are delighted to have secured this two year deal with ITV.” In the U.S.,The Americans is scheduled for premiere on January 30, 2013 on FX Network.

The Americans is co-produced by Fox Television Studios and FX Productions. The series is executive produced by Joe Weisberg, who is also showrunner. Graham Yost (Justified, Boomtown), Joel Fields (Rizzoli & Isles) and Amblin Television’s Darryl Frank (Falling Skies, Smash) and Justin Falvey (Falling Skies, The Borgias) are also executive producers.

Source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/

Keri Russell leaves ‘Felicity’ behind as a Russian double agent on ‘The Americans’

Keri Russell lies half-naked on a bed at a soundstage in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn. Dressed in a black bra and stockings, her pencil skirt hiked up above her waist, she’s smiling, which is surprising given that in the past half hour, she’s been spanked on her naked rear or whipped with a belt more than 50 times.

Russell is filming the fifth episode of “The Americans,” FX’s new drama about Soviet spies in America in the early 1980s. As Elizabeth Jennings (her American name) Russell is undercover, using sex as a weapon in the soon-to-be-lost battle against capitalist oppression. This scene calls for Elizabeth’s mark, a corporate surveillance executive with a penchant for harmful sexual play, to turn unexpectedly violent.

The mechanics of the scene are tricky. After a kiss with guest-actor John Dossett, the two fall to the bed for a quick bout of fake sex. Dossett then flips Russell over, slaps her bottom twice and repeatedly whips her with a belt. Russell’s character realizes what’s happening, screams and squirms away.

In a scene of this sort, there are many details to work out. How many buttons should be undone on her peach blouse before Dossett removes it? When should Russell reach for his belt, and how long should her hands be down there? Then, when and how should he reach for the fake-leather belt which, in a true piece of showbiz magic, makes exactly the sound of a belt slashing flesh without causing Russell any pain? Continue reading Sex, spies & stoli

The new 1980s-set FX series stars Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as KGB agents posing as a married couple in the U.S., but here it’s the Soviets wearing the white hats.

On a bone-rattlingly cold winter morning, Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys are sitting in a Lincoln sedan the size of a small barge, adjusting Walkman-era fashion accouterments and whispering about the Reagan assassination attempt.

Russell and Rhys are not oddball nostalgists. The actors are shooting a scene for FX’s “The Americans,” a Cold War thriller set in the early 1980s that premieres Wednesday.

Created by former CIA officer Joseph Weisberg, the show stars Elizabeth (Russell) and Phillip (Rhys) as KGB agents who are sent to live in America, start a family and blend in as the all-American couple next door. The couple’s task is dangerous: They must feed information to the motherland while covering their tracks so that their neighbors — including a suspicious FBI agent — don’t catch wind of their Kremlin ties. Continue reading ‘The Americans’ on FX bets viewers will warm up to Cold War