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’The Diplomat’s Keri Russell on That Season 3 Finale Shocker: “It’s a Pretty Significant Gut Punch”

The Netflix series The Diplomat, from creator/showrunner Debora Cahn, is back for Season 3 and Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) is delivered a gut punch when Grace Penn (Allison Janney) has to step into the role of president and picks her husband Hal (Rufus Sewell) as VP. When that happens, Kate decides to stay on as Ambassador to the U.K., living separately from Hal while putting on a happily married face at public events. With Foreign Secretary Austin Dennison (David Gyasi), First Gentleman Todd Penn (Bradley Whitford), and Callus Ellis (Aidan Turner) complicating her already complicated life, Kate is left reeling when she realizes that Hal and President Penn have made moves that will have ramifications that carry over to Season 4.

During this interview with Collider, Russell and Cahn discussed why Kate needed to step away from Hal, losing out on becoming vice president, propositioning Dennison, that finale moment between Stuart (Ato Essandoh) and Eidra (Ali Ahn), the decision to end on a cliffhanger, and what it could all mean for Season 4, which has already been picked up. Continue reading ’The Diplomat’s Keri Russell on That Season 3 Finale Shocker: “It’s a Pretty Significant Gut Punch”

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Keri Russell and Allison Janney Break Down the “Chilling” Finale of The Diplomat Season 3

In the final moments of season three of The Diplomat, Kate realizes that her husband and President Grace Penn have schemed to successfully steal a nuclear weapon, the “Poseidon,” from a Russian submarine stuck a few miles off the coast of Britain. It’s a shocking cliffhanger, and one that sets up a very complicated season four. (And don’t worry: Netflix already renewed the thriller; production begins this fall in New York City.)

The Diplomat is made to be binge-watched, so even though it just dropped on Thursday, many viewers have already made it to the finale. “It’s so much fun to just get on the couch with popcorn and just go, just watch,” says actress Allison Janney. Below, Janney, who plays President Penn, and Keri Russell, who stars Ambassador (and Second Lady) Kate Wyler, break down the finale for Town & Country.

Continue reading Keri Russell and Allison Janney Break Down the “Chilling” Finale of The Diplomat Season 3

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Keri Russell Reveals If Partner Matthew Rhys Would Ever Join The Diplomat

Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys are not shy about the fact that they want to team up again, but it’s just a matter of making it work.

Ahead of the premiere of season 3 of The Diplomat, the actress reveals whether the critically acclaimed series that she stars in as US Ambassador to the U.K., Kate Wyler, could be the right fit.

“Totally,” Russell, 49, tells PEOPLE when asked if the Netflix series is one Rhys, 50, could join, though she notes, “I think that would probably be more in his court.”

On the prospect of working together again (the pair met when they starred on The Americans), Russell says she “would love to.”

“But he’s pretty busy doing a million other things. He’s got, like, five other jobs or something,” she says. “He has two new things coming out, so we’ll see.”

Rhys has previously shared the same sentiment. He told PEOPLE last year, “We definitely would work together [again], we’ve said that before.”

“We’ve just waited. We always said The Americans was so special, it would have to be something akin that we’re both so excited to do. It shouldn’t just be anything.”

For now, what fans of The Diplomat can count on is another season of high stakes and oftentimes-hilarious maneuvers from Kate and her husband, Hal Wyler, played by Rufus Sewell.

The show is “a really lucky job to have,” Russell says. “It’s just so fun.”

“It’s such a smart show. It’s fun to play someone so smart, so funny, so fierce. She does stupid s— all the time. It’s really such a sweet spot,” she says of the whip-smart character she’s played since 2023.

“I love her frankness, I love her bossiness. I love how she is always getting herself into hot water. I mean, to lose in a drama as a character is good. To be constantly losing and messing things up, it’s great. But I also love that she can pull it together and be presentable and put a dress on if she needs to.”

Season 3 sees Kate living “the particular nightmare that is getting what you want,” per the official synopsis.

“She just accused Vice President Grace Penn (Allison Janney) of hatching a terrorist plot and admitted she’s after the VP’s job. But now the President is dead, Kate’s husband Hal may have inadvertently killed him, and Grace Penn is leader of the free world.”

Amidst the chaos, Hal’s not slowing down with his “campaign to land Kate the vice presidency,” while she continues to juggle “an increasingly complicated friendship with Foreign Secretary Austin Dennison (David Gyasi) and an unnerving bond with First Gentleman Todd Penn (Bradley Whitford).”

Source: https://people.com

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Filed in Articles & Interviews The Diplomat

Keri for Flaunt magazine

“The win is getting to go to the award show, but not winning, so you never have to speak. That’s the secret,” Keri Russell confesses to me as a late summer darkness descends on our evening video call. Russell, fresh off her FLAUNT shoot, is not being facetious. She’s a pragmatic person, an actor that’s been a part of our collective viewing consciousness since she turned 15, so her insider secrets are worth some weight.

Russell is, of course, in on the joke: in order to “never have to speak at the award show,” one must be part of a class of elite artists, and must have delivered a performance so outstanding that it was isolated from a sea of media content released in the entire year. Keri Russell knows that the real win is in the work.

Russell, who made her mark as Felicity in the eponymous early 2000s rom-com series created by J.J. Abrams, has become known for the signature brand of warmth and onscreen charm she brings to her breadth of work. And, truly, Russell’s face is ubiquitous: she’s in action and fantasy franchises (Mission: Impossible III [2006], Dawn of the Planet of the Apes [2014], Star Wars Episode IX- The Rise of Skywalker [2019]. She’s in long-running television shows (The aforementioned Felicity; FX’s The Americans, and Running Wilde). She was in the riotous Cocaine Bear [2023]. She voiced a fantasy video game (Open Roads). She’s had guest spots on some of the most prominent series of the last three decades (Scrubs, Arrested Development, Sesame Street, Boy Meets World, et. al). All of these have earned the California-born actor a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and helped secure a permanent place in her viewers’ hearts (as well as a multitude of Emmy and Critics Choice nominations, with a Golden Globe win.) Continue reading Keri for Flaunt magazine

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Keri Russell Talks ‘The Diplomat,’ Fashion — and Balancing Hollywood and Real Life

Soon Keri Russell will dip back into work mode. Up first are the Emmy Awards on Sept. 14, for which she is nominated for a second time for her role as Kate Wyler in Netflix’s “The Diplomat.” The nomination is her seventh for the show, joining one SAG, two Golden Globe and two Critics Choice nods. In the weeks that follow she’ll begin promotion of the show’s third season, out Oct 16. By November, they’ll return to set for the filming of Season Four.

For now, though, Russell is enjoying the last bits of summer, having just moved her oldest son River into college.

“For better or worse, the nature of our jobs is we travel a lot, so I think my kids are used to coming and going and going to a new place and dealing with airports and moving your stuff and knowing how to live,” Russell, who shares two children with ex-husband Shane Deary and one with partner Matthew Rhys, says of the college drop-off. “So in a way, it’s easier than families who have maybe never experienced that, have never been separated. So River, my oldest kid, he’s had practice, so I feel like he was OK. The younger siblings, I think it was emotional because they’re like, ‘oh my gosh, now it’s just us.’ There were some tears from the younger siblings.” Continue reading Keri Russell Talks ‘The Diplomat,’ Fashion — and Balancing Hollywood and Real Life

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The Diplomat boss, Keri Russell talk season 3

“I’m interested in those moments where you feel like a line has been breached and then you decide the line should move,” showrunner Debora Cahn says.

Grace Penn is now president.

In the final moments of The Diplomat’s second season, Hal (Rufus Sewell) shocked everyone by calling President Rayburn (Michael McKean) with the news of Grace’s (Allison Janney) involvement in the attack on the British vessel. He shocked Rayburn so much that the man died. And when season 3 picks up, we’re back in that moment: Grace Penn is president, and she — alongside Kate (Keri Russell) and everyone else — is trying to figure out what just happened.

“What I love is seeing the crazy minutia of, legally, what has to happen to make her president,” Russell tells Entertainment Weekly.

For showrunner Debora Cahn, change was always a given. “It’s such a part of the fabric of working in the foreign service,” Cahn says. “This is a story about coming in, not knowing about a place, getting to know the place, and then as soon as you feel like you have a handle on it, you’re off to someplace else. Or all of the dynamics have shifted.”

And with each change, the characters will have to check in on what matters — both for them, personally, and for the country they’ve promised to serve. “What we’re looking for are situations that change your moral perspective on the picture you’re looking at,” Cahn says. “There’s been an earthquake. You have to take all of your principles and values and see how they need to hopefully not disappear but shift for the new reality. We’re telling a story about people who are used to shifting reality all the time.” Continue reading The Diplomat boss, Keri Russell talk season 3

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Keri Russell On Her Second Emmy Nomination For ‘The Diplomat’ & The Exhilaration Of Playing A Messy Foreign Ambassador: “It’s The Losing That Is Enjoyable”

Keri Russell can’t get enough of the political playground that Debora Cahn has built in Netflix‘s The Diplomat.

The actress, who recently earned her second Emmy nomination for her role as U.S. Foreign Ambassador Kate Wyler on the political drama, radiates glee when she discusses the project, which she tells Deadline “is one of my most favorite jobs I’ve ever worked on.”

“It’s just hitting such a sweet spot, I think, with age, for me, and comfort in yourself and comfort with the way you are in the world. I love it so much. I don’t want Debora to ever get sick of writing it, because then what am I going to do?” she laughed.

Continue reading Keri Russell On Her Second Emmy Nomination For ‘The Diplomat’ & The Exhilaration Of Playing A Messy Foreign Ambassador: “It’s The Losing That Is Enjoyable”

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