Articles & Interviews – Page 15

Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys Gush Over Each Other Ahead of ‘The Americans’ Season 5

Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys were the definition of adorable while promoting the upcoming season of The Americans at FX’s Television Critics Association press day on Thursday.

The co-stars and real-life couple were beamed in via satellite from New York, where they are currently filming the seventh episode of upcoming season, which happens to be directed by Rhys.

When Rhys was asked what it was like to direct his longtime partner on set, he adorably quipped: “I think we’re going into a tunnel��.”

Rhys recalled directing Russell for the first time during the fourth season of The Americans. Continue reading Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys Gush Over Each Other Ahead of ‘The Americans’ Season 5

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The Americans: What to Expect in Season 5

Few could have predicted that The Americans the acclaimed drama about two KGB spies posing as Americans in suburban Washington, D.C., in the 1980s, would’ve been so relevant in 2017 but yet here we are, no?

As the series approaches its finale — Season 6 next year will be its last — expect to see more of Russia, more of the solidly crafted story and… more cool disguises. What you won’t see? Paige delving too deeply into the dirty business of her parents’ work… at least not right away.

There’s opportunity now, of course, since she now knows what dad Philip (Matthew Rhys) and mom Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell) really do for a living. “I never thought it would come to this,” Holly Taylor said at the Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena Calif., Wednesday. Paige has deeply held beliefs, she said, and “it’s hard for her to jump on the bandwagon of killing people and putting them in a suitcase. We have to play the waiting game.”

With Oleg back in Russia, his status as a privileged member of society will allow the show to to tell stories from there, Joe Weisberg, creator and executive producer said. “For four seasons of the show, we were focused on those characters here in America,” he said; now there’s opportunity to delve into life in the Soviet Union. “We’re going to take it throughout the season,” he said.

Also on deck: more great disguises. Having convincingly transformed into sexy vixens, a janitor, a Vietnam vet and others, Philip and Elizabeth still have other covers to unveil. What might they do next? “A clown?” Rhys joked. Or maybe he wasn’t joking? “There’s a fine balance on the show we have to remain in the realm of this reality. We’re not Mission: Impossible, where there’s prosthetic faces being ripped off.” There’s a thick look book of disguises they’ve pulled off over the seasons, he said, noting that the variation they’ve achieved is incredible. “A clown seems like a natural progression.”

The Americans returns Tuesday March 7 at 10/9c on FX.

Source: http://www.tvguide.com

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The Americans: First season 5 cryptic details

LLeave it to The Americans showrunners to entirely subvert our expectations. With their acclaimed FX spy thriller heading into its penultimate season, do Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields tell us how season 5 is gaining steam toward some exciting conclusion? Nope! Not even a little.

“We’ve come to embrace the slow burn — such a slow burn that it may not even be burning at all,” Weisberg says wryly. “It’s not ramped up. It’s not hyped up. It’s not building the tension — but it will be a great season.” So what, then, is going on with EW’s first look image of stars Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell in flight crew garb? Below we spoke to the ever-crafty producers and tried our best to get some answers about the new season, which debuts in March.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When producers know they’re doing a penultimate season, they usually opt for one of two tactics: Either more ramping up to the dramatic final season or they approach things like it’s actually the first half of the final season and major events are happening throughout. Which did you opt for?

JOE WEISBERG: We are doing neither of those tactics. We have a whole new tactic. People have called this show a “slow burn.” We used to think that was a back-handed compliment, or possibly even an insult. We’ve come to embrace the slow burn — such a slow burn that it may not even be burning at all. We’re just telling a story as it unfolds. For us, the penultimate season is just another season of telling a story of this family and the people around them. It’s not ramped up. It’s not hyped up. It’s not building the tension — but it will be a great season.

JOEL FIELDS: In a strange way this story has come to life so much for us that we’re just telling the story we have and following it. It would seem backward to us to say, “How do we construct backward from the final season of the show?” When FX picked up the final season they didn’t say, “You have 23 episodes left.” They said, “What do you guys feel?” and “let’s have a dialogue and how much we need together to tell this story.” The story is giving us more than we’re giving the story.

WEISBERG: Just to be really difficult, we should tell everybody that we’re slowing down. Because when you’re about to come to a stop, you’ve got to slow down! So we’re slowing down some and then next season we’re going to cruise very slowly to the finish line. There were no airbags in the ‘80s, you have to be very careful. Continue reading The Americans: First season 5 cryptic details

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‘The Americans’ Star Jokes About Show’s Connection to Lewinsky Scandal as Cast, Writers Tease End of FX Series

With just two seasons left of The Americans, fans of the FX series about Cold War-era Soviet espionage are eager to know how it will end.

Co-showrunners Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg remained tight-lipped about specific developments planned for seasons five and six during The Hollywood Reporter’s TV Talks panel discussion with chief TV critic Tim Goodman but they did discuss, in broad terms, how they were approaching the end of the critically-acclaimed show (which earned its first Emmy nominations in major categories this year). And star Matthew Rhys was full of humorous suggestions for a dramatic finale.

Speaking at the 92nd Street Y in New York, the actor, who was joined by his on- and off-screen partner Keri Russell, joked throughout the panel about ideas for how the central secret, that Rhys and Russell’s characters are Russian spies posing as a married American couple in the U.S., would be revealed.

“I think the last scene is [the couple’s FBI agent neighbor] Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) going, ‘Wait. They were what?’,” Rhys quipped.

Russell also prompted Rhys to reveal his other idea, which involves a connection between the couple’s teenage daughter Paige (Holly Taylor) to one of the most famous political sex scandals of the late ’90s.

“Paige changes her name to Monica Lewinsky,” Rhys said to laughs and murmuring from the audience. Continue reading ‘The Americans’ Star Jokes About Show’s Connection to Lewinsky Scandal as Cast, Writers Tease End of FX Series

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‘The Americans’: Watch THR’s TV Talks Panel With Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys and Co-Showrunners

Check back at 7:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, Oct. 30 to watch chief TV critic Tim Goodman moderate a discussion with the team behind the Emmy-nominated FX series.
On the heels of their first Emmy nominations (after four seasons) in the categories of best drama series and best drama actor and actress, the stars and showrunners of FX’s critically acclaimed series The Americans will sit down with The Hollywood Reporter’s chief TV critic Tim Goodman in New York City.

For the second installment in THR’s TV Talks series, Goodman will moderate a discussion with Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, who play the undercover KGB couple at the center of the Cold War-era series, and co-showrunners Joel Fields and creator Joe Weisberg.

FX recently announced that the series about Soviet espionage in the U.S. in the early ’80s has been renewed for a final two seasons, set to air in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

Check back at 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT to watch the livestream of Goodman’s discussion with the team behind The Americans.

Source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com

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The New Power New York List

Introduction
There are as many power lists in New York as there are Uber drivers. Most celebrate long-standing legends like Harvey Weinstein, Barbara Walters, and Michael Bloomberg. But there’s a new league of movers and shakers upending the entertainment business in Manhattan and beyond. These trailblazers tend to be more digitally savvy, entrepreneurial, and unafraid to ruffle feathers.

Keri Russell
Actress

The star of “The Americans” is at the top of her game as an actress, earning raves on the FX drama, which films in Brooklyn. This year, Emmy voters finally recognized her work with a best actress nomination. She navigated between her day job and her role in the Civil War big-screen drama “Free State of Jones” this year all while preparing for the arrival in June of son, Sam, a co-production with her boyfriend and “Americans” co-star, Matthew Rhys.

Source: http://variety.com

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5 Things You Didn’t Know About Keri Russell

Tomorrow evening, the 68th Emmy Awards will be broadcast from Los Angeles, where Keri Russell will be a contender for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her role in The Americans—her first-ever Emmy nomination. Russell’s costar and real-life love, Matthew Rhys, is also a contender in the actor category. Because the FX series has been largely overlooked for three seasons running, the couple—who earlier this summer welcomed their son, Sam—didn’t even bother tuning into the live nominations announcement. “You just think if it hasn’t happened yet, it’s probably never going to happen,” Russell said in August. The subsequent celebration at their summer home in Woodstock, New York, included a pair of Pacíficos and a cheese quesadilla (“Because we’re classy”). Ahead of tomorrow night’s awards, here are five things you may not have known about the artist formerly known as Felicity.

1. After Russell infamously cut her signature curly hair during season two of Felicity, show ratings tanked and a media firestorm ensued. As a result, WB executives called for network approval of all future hairstyle changes requested by talent. “Nobody is cutting their hair again on our network,” WB’s entertainment president said at the time. “People still take it really personally,” Russell said. “They come up to me at breakfast places like, ‘When are you growing your hair back?’ It grows back, crazies!” Rhys was recently asked what his reaction would be if Russell came home with a similar chop. “I’d be like, ‘I hope you kept that hair, we can put it on eBay. Buy Felicity’s real hair.’ Baby Sam needs to go to college.”

2. Russell has said the sex scenes in The Americans can be a little uncomfortable. “No one wakes up on Tuesday morning at 6:00 a.m. and is [excited to be] like, ‘Hey! Nice to meet ya! Okay, here we go, whoooo!’ with 50 of our friends watching,” she has said. While the scenes are typically filmed at “some cheap-y hotel in Staten Island,” Russell takes a similarly laid-back approach to her pre-take getting ready routine. “There is no way this is going to happen unless there is a beer had. Are you serious? Hello, stranger!” It’s awkward for Rhys, too: “I get a little protective,” he said last month. “I’m like, ‘Can someone get her a f—in’ robe, please? She’s standing there naked, we’ve cut for five seconds, Jesus Christ. And they’re like, ‘Dude, this is the fourth season.’”

3. Russell got her start at age 15 when she answered an open casting call for the Disney Channel’s nationwide search for singers, dancers, and actors in The All New Mickey Mouse Club. Russell was hired as a dancer, but she was too good an actress to stay in the follies. “She ended up being this fantastic actor, so we started writing more sketches for her,” cohost Fred Newman later said. One of 19 kids on the show, Russell has said the cast often threw sleepovers and took trips together. “The job felt less like work and more like going to a really intense dance class. And um, my high school boyfriend was Tony Lucca. He was the James Taylor of our group.” (In 2012, Lucca competed on The Voice, where he butted heads with judge and former Mousketeer Christina Aguilera. He came in second. Russell voted for him.)

4. Before Russell was cast in Felicity, she was a contender to play Cher Horowitz in Clueless. “The one that—she was in that show and she cut her hair and everybody was mad? Keri Russell, yes,” Amy Heckerling, the writer and director of Clueless, later recalled.

5. Russell was almost too good-looking to play Felicity. “In the original script, Felicity was having lunch at high school with her best friend Maya, ‘a tragically beautiful girl,’” Russell said. “And I called my manager and said, ‘They’re gonna want me to play the stupid best friend. They’re gonna see me and go, No, thanks. But will you come back in and read the two-line character of Maya?”’ For the audition, Russell went makeup-free, wore her hair in a bun, and dressed in baggy jeans and a sweater, but it didn’t work. “When Keri came in, I was blown away,” Felicity creator J.J. Abrams said. “She was so pretty, I thought there was no way she could play the part. And then she started reading and was just funny as hell. And if you’re funny, I don’t care, you win.”

Source: http://www.vogue.com

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Why Keri Russell Is Worried About Her Favorite Place In The Country

For actress Keri Russell, a love of wild spaces goes back to the beginning of her career.

In a video shared exclusively with Refinery29, the star of The Americans relates a personal story about protecting America’s natural beauty.

“I had this binder that I kept my scripts in,” she said, referencing the insane, 18-hour days of her TV career in her early 20s. “On the cover, I had found this photo of Alaska. You know, the big, amazing mountains and water. And that was kind of my solace, in working on these dark stages. I would just look at that photo and think, I’m going to go there.”

Not quite 20 years later, she’s finally made it. She’s seen Alaska and she wants it to stay.

Russell is speaking out with environmental organization The Sierra Club to highlight the crisis facing the Arctic due to fossil fuel development and climate change. The organization is calling on President Obama to protect the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) from drilling and other threats.

At more than 30,000 square miles, the ANWR is the largest National Wildlife Refuge in the United States. The refuge stretches across five different ecological regions, and supports hundreds of species of mammals, fish, and birds. However, it remains vulnerable to oil drilling and fossil fuel development as part of a political compromise from the 1970s and ’80s.

The video showcases the beauty of the untouched landscape across the wide, sweeping spaces of the refuge. “It’s pretty amazing,” Russell said.

“Of course, we don’t want them to drill here,” Russell said. “It would be such a tragedy. I need those spaces; I don’t want them to go away.”

Source: http://www.refinery29.com

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Daniel Fienberg: The 10 Nominees I’ll Be Rooting Hardest For at the Emmys

From the leading lady of ‘The Americans’ to the DP on ‘The Man in the High Castle’ to a cross-dressing supporting player on ‘Baskets,’ THR’s TV critic picks the people he most ardently wants to see grab the gold.

The 2016 Primetime Emmy Awards will be handed out on September 10 and 11 (the “creative arts” ceremony, perplexingly spread out over two parts) and September 18 (the actual ABC telecast hosted by Jimmy Kimmel), and I’ll be taking a rooting interest in every category because, like most TV viewers, I have preferences and I take them personally.

But here are 10 nominees I’ll be rooting for especially enthusiastically on the various Emmy nights. I intentionally left out winners that I expect are no-brainers. I don’t need to stress out rooting for Sarah Paulson and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, because they’ll be just fine. Some of these are longshots, some are probably favorites, but if the 2016 Emmys want me looking back with fond memories, at least a few of them had better win.

Keri Russell, ‘The Americans’
I could have filled half of the slots on this list with categories in which I’ll be rooting for The Americans, but if The Americans won in all the categories it deserves to, it critics would no longer be able to feel superior in our love of The Americans and what would be the point in that? It’s a tribute to how great Keri Russell is on The Americans — Elizabeth’s kitchen staredown with Paige from this season is worth all available awards — that I’ll be rooting for the Felicity veteran in a category that’s pretty remarkable. Cookie Lyon remains one of TV’s most entertaining characters. Tatiana Maslany is a multi-faceted marvel. Viola Davis nails everything her erratic show lets her do. But this year, which saw Elizabeth do worse and more conflicted and conflicting things than ever before, should be Russell’s year.

Source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com

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Keri Russell on Her First Emmy Nomination, for ‘The Americans’

In 1999, after a single season as the bountifully curled college student at the helm of WB’s “Felicity,” Keri Russell won a Golden Globe. Seventeen years and countless hairstyles later, Ms. Russell has finally earned recognition for the strongest role of her career — an Emmy Award nomination for playing Elizabeth Jennings, the K.G.B. agent and master of disguise, on FX’s “The Americans.” The 68th Emmy Awards will be held on Sept. 18.

It was the first Emmy nomination for Ms. Russell, who, despite high marks in that critically acclaimed show, had been overlooked its three previous seasons. The icing on the cake: Matthew Rhys, her onscreen husband (Philip Jennings) and offscreen partner, earned his first nomination as well.

“To be honest, we weren’t paying attention to it at all, because for so many years we haven’t been acknowledged,” she said. “What a fun surprise. Because in a strange way I feel like we’re the bad kids who got invited to the party — like somehow this year we slipped through the cracks.”

In a recent phone conversation from the couple’s country home in Woodstock, N.Y., Ms. Russell talked about working under the radar; life with their newborn, Sam; and the real reason they drink so much wine. These are edited excerpts from that conversation. Continue reading Keri Russell on Her First Emmy Nomination, for ‘The Americans’