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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

FX has announced that the pilot episode of The Americans will be a feature-length 97 minutes, up from the typical 42-44 minute running time of a typical dramatic episode of television on basic cable. The first airing of the Keri Russell/Matthew Rhys KGB spy drama will conclude at 11:37 p.m., with the first encore airing from 11:37 p.m. to 1:14 a.m. and the second encore from 1:14 a.m. to 2:50 a.m. The premiere of FX’s latest drama, which will fill the time slot vacated by American Horror Story: Asylum, will be preceded by the 2010 Tom Cruise film Knight and Day.

The Americans follows married couple Phillip (Rhys) and Elizabeth Jennings (Russell), who seem to have it all. They’re the young, happy couple that you see around town and simultaneously admire and envy, with their beautiful children and seemingly comfortable existence. However, they’re hiding something from everyone in their life, including their children – they’re agents for the KGB and involved in an arranged marriage. However, as they grow closer as a couple and Phillip begins to embrace America’s values, things get much more complicated and the two might begin to question their loyalty to a cause they once held near and dear.

The Americans also features Emmy winner Margo Martindale as Claudia, a fellow KGB agent who delivers assignments to Phillip and Elizabeth; Holly Taylor and Keidrich Sellati as their children Paige and Henry; Noah Emmerich as FBI Agent Stan Beeman, who lives next door to the Jennings family; and Maximiliano Hernández as Agent Chris Amador, Stan’s partner and a fellow member of the Counterintelligence division responsible for fighting foreign agents on American soil.

The Americans premieres Wednesday, January 30th.

Source: http://www.tvovermind.com/

“The Americans,” a new spy thriller starting Wednesday on FX, has a C.I.A. pedigree, is set in the geopolitical crucible of the cold war 1980s and stars Keri Russell playing against winsome type as a Communist hard-liner who is equally adept at seducing bureaucrats, kicking the heads of her enemies through walls or inserting a bit of propaganda into her son’s homework.

It has plenty going for it as a cloak-and-dagger series, in other words, especially in a prime-time era defined by another espionage drama, “Homeland.”

But it’s the metaphorical tension of the show’s domestic conceit — a pair of deep-cover K.G.B. agents are assigned to pose as husband and wife in the Washington suburbs — that the show’s creators hope will elevate it into something more than a pulpy diversion. The bet is that beyond the clandestine window dressing, viewers may find some deeper resonance in the story of two people thrown together by fate, who end up years later with two kids, a house in the ’burbs and a superficial marriage that they keep up for appearance’s sake. Continue reading Those Cute Spies Around the Corner ‘The Americans’ With Keri Russell as a K.G.B. Agent

“The Americans,” a new espionage series set to begin on Wednesday on FX, stars Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as Soviet sleeper agents posing as an average married couple in the Washington suburbs in the early 1980s. (You can read more about the series here.) The show, a spy thriller/domestic drama, requires the actors to balance violent fight scenes and other action set pieces with the more delicate work of portraying a coldly professional relationship that is evolving into something more.

“It’s a real acting challenge,” Mr. Rhys said. “You have these extreme moments hand in hand with the relationship they have that grounds it, or makes it a little more human.”

Ms. Russell and Mr. Rhys didn’t really know each other before filming started. But spend any time on the show’s set in Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhood and multiple people will remark, unprovoked, on the chemistry between them, something that became apparent during an interview with both actors in Ms. Russell’s chilly trailer (the heat wasn’t working). Mr. Rhys wore a thick black winter coat, earning mocking scorn from Ms. Russell: “Do you want me to get you some earmuffs?” Continue reading The Spy Who Married Me: Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys on ‘The Americans’