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Craft services appears to have closed for business, but Keri Russell would very much like something to nibble on if it wouldn’t be an imposition on the people packing away the last of the chips, cookies and crackers. This is not a diva trip—if anything, the petite actress somehow appears to make herself physically smaller as she asks to forage around in the snack bin.

The sun is setting on the second day of the new year, and Russell has just spent the better part of the last three hours filming a pivotal scene for the new FX series, The Americans (Jan. 30, 10 p.m.). It’s a long, rather tricky passage—there’s a good deal of futzing with an old reel-to-reel tape recorder, and some of the lines seem a bit more knotty than they absolutely need be—and so Russell and her co-star, Matthew Rhys, had run into a few rough patches earlier in the afternoon.

Having secured a small bag of pretzels (“I promise not to munch too loudly into your tape recorder”), Russell’s discernible self-possession is offset by a disarming tendency to punctuate her sentences with one of the few words you still can’t say on basic cable. Joking about how long it took to nail the scene, she refuses to make any excuses for the delay.

“If I would have known my lines, I would have talked to you sooner. But I did not, as you saw!” she laughs. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, that scene! Good riddance, that scene! Never again!” Continue reading Sleeper Agent With new spy drama The Americans, FX again shows it’s unafraid to take risks to make quality TV

Stars Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys and the spy drama’s EPs tell reporters enough time has passed to sympathize with Soviets — but are quick to point out that an al-Qaeda version would be “impossible.”

Briefly sidelined by Sandy, FX’s The Americans started production in New York in December and gets a speedy launch on the network later this month.

The thriller, which stars Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as embedded Soviet spies in 1981 Washington, DC, made an appearance during Wednesday’s Television Critics Association winter press tour — and producers were quick to emphasize who viewers should be rooting for.

“It might be a little different to believe and get used to, but we want you to root for the KGB,” said EP Joel Fields. “They’re going to try to get the Soviets to win the Cold War.”

History knows they’re fighting a losing battle, but the creative team behind the high-profile launch expressed a confidence that more than enough time has passed for American audiences to not hold a grudge.

“If you tried to tell a story like this about al-Qaeda now, it would be impossible; no one would want to hear it,” Fields continued. “I feel even the same could have been said up to 10 years after the cold war ended.”

But this isn’t Homeland. Though the Showtime hit went oddly unmentioned during the discussion, the similar theme of covert ops takes a backseat to the odd, forced family dynamic of two Russian spies raising their in-the-dark children as Americans.

“The show is about marriage and that marriage in an allegory for international relations,” said creator Joe Weisberg. “And international relations are an allegory for marriage.”

Speaking of the show’s tricky time period aesthetics, producers made more than a few jokes about Russell’s high-waisted jeans and defended their musical choices — particularly one steamy scene that used Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight.”

Though the track is synonymous with a similar moment in Risky Business, they called it “perfect for that time.”

Less superficial matters of the time will also play a big part of the show. Fields pointed out that the attempted assassination on President Ronald Reagan will come early in the series and will be a “big event” in the lives of the characters.

As a closing pitch to root for the bad guy protagonists, Weisberg said he wanted viewers to take a hard look at both sides of the Cold War.

“These were these really competing value systems,” he said. “And there’s no question that repressive socialism failed, but unbridled consumption hasn’t exactly led to great satisfaction — and one problem is how do we express that dramatically.”

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

First up, a warning: Just because Keri Russell is in “The Americans,” don’t expect another “Felicity.” Unless you always wanted Felicity to be a girl who could kick a man through a wall while working to bring down governments.

Those are the kinds of things we get in “The Americans.” It’s gritty, sometimes dark and unquestionably great to watch.

The show focuses on Elizabeth and Philip Jennings (Russell and Matthew Rhys), a “normal” couple living with their two kids in 1981 suburbia. Of course, they’re not normal at all — they are instead undercover KGB agents on a long-term spy mission to undermine America.

Elizabeth and Philip are the heroes. As the show’s creator, Joe Weisberg, put it, “We want you to root for the KGB.” Continue reading ‘The Americans’: The fighting, music and espionage of the Cold War

Debuting on January 30th, the new FX new series, The Americans, stars Matthew Rhys (Brothers and Sisters) and Keri Russell (Felicity) as Phillip and Elizabeth, KGB spies living deep undercover in the United States in 1981 – in the midst of the Cold War.

At the TCA (Television Critics Association) press tour today, The Americans’ creator Joe Weisberg was asked if viewers are being asked to root for the enemy, as it were, and he replied, “I think that is one of the big questions of the series, and I think we would all very much like both for Philip and Elizabeth to have a happy, healthy marriage that goes on for a long time. From the start, it’s going to have a lot of ups and downs like most of the marriages that we’re all familiar with. And then in the Cold War, although it might be a little bit difficult to believe and get used to, we want you to root for the KGB.” He acknowledged, “They’re going to try and undermine the U.S. government. They’re going to try to have the Soviet Union win in the Cold War. We know that’s not going to work out too well for them.” Quipped Russell, “We will rewrite history!”

However, executive producer Joel Fields noted that there’s also a big part of the show set at the FBI, with US agents attempting to find exactly the kind of spies that Elizabeth and Phillip are and, “The hope is you’ll root for them too. What’s great about what Joe created is it’s a show about marriage, and the marriage is an allegory for international relations. So you kind of root for where you are, we hope, emotionally in the scenes.” Continue reading The Americans: FX Introduces the KGB Spies Next Door

Felicity, she ain’t.

For her TV return, Keri Russell stars as Elizabeth Jennings, a dedicated Soviet spy pretending to be a happily married American suburban housewife in The Americans, an ’80s-set FX series debuting Jan. 30. With her faux-husband Phillip, played by Brothers & Sisters star Matthew Rhys, she will kidnap, kill and offer her sexual favors, all to further the interests of the Soviet Union.

And she’s not just a commie spy, which would be change enough from the good girl she played in Felicity. She’s also an action hero. In the pilot, she kicks some guy so hard, his head goes through the wall.

“It was terrible to do. …There’s no pad, I’m kicking his head into the wall. He grabbed me and said ‘Do it and do it right, because if you mess it up, we’re going to have to do it again, and then I’m going to be (angry).’ ”

Posing as an American, of course, is nothing new for Rhys, a Welsh actor who has often played American characters. What he has learned about Americans, he says, is that we’re both welcoming and “incredibly honest” in the way we share how we feel.

“In day-to-day activity, there’s an incredible emotional articulateness that you don’t find in Britain … that’s lacking in the British system. That and a lack of therapy.”

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/