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Felicity costars reunite for the first time (in bed) for EW

Scott Speedman can’t find his pants. The actor gamely traded his clothes for a set of pj’s to hop into bed with his Felicity costars Keri Russell and Scott Foley. It’s the first time the trio have been in the same room since the cult-favorite WB show wrapped in 2002, though you wouldn’t guess it from watching them joke around and reminisce. The laughter continues when the actors settle in on a nearby sofa. Speedman — ­having been unable to locate the bottom half of his outfit — sits down in just a shirt and black boxer briefs. (Note: 1990s dreams really can come true!) “Scott Speedman is currently in his underwear,” narrates Russell. Foley grins: “Keeping things nice and cool, huh, buddy?” Speedman responds with an unconcerned shrug.

Isn’t that, like, just soooo Ben Covington? Created by J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves, Felicity spun the story of Felicity Porter (Russell), who, on a whim, ditches the premed life her parents planned for her and follows her longtime high school crush, Ben (Speedman), across the country to attend school in New York City. Before we had Team Jacob and Team Edward, there was Felicity’s epic love triangle throughout her college years with her RA, earnest and bookish Noel Crane (Foley), and dreamy yet emotionally complicated Ben. The drama ran from 1998 to 2002, capturing a specific late-’90s/early-’00s angst that’s carved a permanent place in fans’ hearts. “People still come up to me and tell me how much they like Scandal and follow that up with ‘But I was always Team Ben,’ ” says Foley. Does the reverse happen to Speedman regarding Team Noel? He gives his best Covington-like grin: “Nope.” Continue reading Felicity costars reunite for the first time (in bed) for EW

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‘Felicity’: Where Are They Now?

Keri Russell (Felicity Porter)

Then: Keri Russell played Felicity Porter, a smart girl who turned down attending Stanford’s acclaimed pre-med program to follow her high school crush, Ben Covington, to the University of New York. While in the Big Apple, Felicity comes into her own, maturing and becoming a grounded, independent woman as the show progresses.

Now: After Felicity, Russell starred in 2006’s Mission Impossible III with Tom Cruise, playing a fellow MI6 agent. She made mid-2000s cameos on Into the West and Scrubs, and hit the big screen in 2007’s August Rush, 2013’s Dark Skies, and 2014’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Her most recent projects include a starring turn in the FX drama The Americans and a role in The Free State of Jones, an upcoming movie set during the Civil War.

Source: http://www.ew.com

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The Gotham 60: Influential New Yorkers in Entertainment and Media

Power Couple: Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys

She’s been America’s sweetheart since the “Felicity” days. He’s a handsome Welshman with the Richard Burton gene for charisma and charm. Russell and Rhys have scored knockout performances during the past three seasons as a pair of covert Soviet spies in a terribly complicated marriage on FX’s 1980s-set drama “The Americans.” After two years of playing a multitude of characters on the show, love blossomed when the wigs and costumes came off. Russell and Rhys are now often seen out and about in New York with Russell’s young children. And the pair are inseparable at industry events, which can only have FX execs thanking their lucky red stars.

Source: http://variety.com

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ContentMode Interview

ou have a pretty full plate of commitments and responsibilities. How do you stay energized?

Caffeine, booze and makeouts. and dancing. But to clarify- dancing around my house, usually alone, usually to my kids dismay.

How do you prepare for days like today (shooting this fashion editorial) when you need to be animated and vibrant? It must be tricky sometimes in your profession to always be “on”. How do you shake off the bad days and blue moods, when you have to perform? (Conversely, how do you go from a buoyant mood to doom and gloom when that is called for?)
Music sometimes helps with a mood ,and hopefully the writing informs the scene. I’m lucky to work with a lot of people right now that really interest and inspire me creatively that helps enormously.

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Keri Russell on ‘The Americans’ Graphic Tooth-Pulling Scene and 5 Other Emmy Contender Quickies

“My favorite aspect of the show has so little to do with them being spies,” actress says of FX espionage drama

For Keri Russell, sometimes filming a compelling scene can be like pulling teeth. Literally.

With Emmy nominations voting underway, TheWrap spoke to Russell, star of FX’s period spy drama “The Americans,” about Season 3’s highlights.

Among them: An excruciating scene during which her TV husband Philip (played by Matthew Rhys) yanks a chomper out of her mouth with a primitiveness that would make the dentist from “The Marathon Man” wince.

TheWrap: What was the toughest thing you had to do this season?
Keri Russell: The tooth-pulling scene [from the episode “Open House”]. It was such an abstract scene … But luckily Tommy Schlamme directed the episode and had a really clear idea of how he wanted to do it. And I just love working with him. So I just kind of came in with no expectations and just went for it, with whatever he said. His whole take on it was he wanted it to be like a really intimate, almost sex scene. So we just kind of did that. And luckily Matthew [Rhys] is so good. Continue reading Keri Russell on ‘The Americans’ Graphic Tooth-Pulling Scene and 5 Other Emmy Contender Quickies

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Vulture is calling The Americans the best drama of the year.

All this week, we’re presenting the Vulture TV Awards, honoring the best in television from the past year.

The nominees are:

The Americans
Mad Men
Better Call Saul
Transparent
Justified

And the Best Drama is …

The Americans

How many years in a row will The Americans top lists of the “Best Dramas You’re Not Watching?” As long as it’s on FX, probably — and no matter how long it runs, the writers, actors, and filmmakers involved in its production should take it as a compliment. The Americans’ commitment to its dramatic mission is so uncompromising that the show’s heroine, Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell), a warrior for Mother Russia, would approve of it.

Created by Joe Weisberg and co-executive-produced by him and Joel Fields, the series is subtle and quiet and often works in a minor key; it never had the extravagant visuals and grandiose cultural aspirations of, say, Mad Men, this summer’s Vulture TV Award–winner for Best Show, a series which, at its best, combined the exhaustive invention of a John Dos Passos novel and the ebullient showmanship of a fireworks display. And yet, week in and week out, no U.S. drama is more exactingly calibrated than this blue-gray chamber piece about Soviet infiltrators posing as suburban American travel agents. Every scene, line, cut, and performance moment reinforces the characters’ emotional journeys within the episode and the season. And the journey is ultimately tragic, because Elizabeth, her husband Philip (Matthew Rhys), FBI agent Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich), and most of the other major characters are working in jobs and living out lives that are shaped largely by various forms of ideology and propaganda, and serving masters who are obsessed with replicating those worldviews without question. They seem to have little or no self-awareness, save for what little they glean in the show’s self-help groups. Every now and then you get a spectacular one-off action sequence, like the one at the end of “Walter Taffet,” or a GIF-packed squirm-inducer like the scene where Philip yanks out Elizabeth’s shattered tooth. But these scenes are exceptions. The Americans is more often concerned with the lies that characters tell each other and themselves, and the agony that results when the deception is finally revealed, as it was in the devastating “Stingers,” possibly the most perfect hour of TV I watched in the last 12 months.

Whenever I write about The Americans, I always end up comparing it to architecture and carpentry rather than fine art, because when I think about the totality of the series, I picture blueprints being drawn up, and pieces of material being cut and sanded and bolted or fitted together. This, too, sounds diminishing — the phrase fine art is somewhat diminishing in itself, when you think about all the other kinds of creative expression that implicitly aren’t as “fine” as painting or sculpture — but perhaps less so if you imagine the most elegant and imaginative end product: not an Ikea chair but a Chippendale; not a prefab McMansion but Fallingwater.

Source: http://www.vulture.com/

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Emmys: Here’s Our Dream Ballot for Drama Series

Emmy season is here! Voters have until June 26 to fill out their nomination ballots before the big announcement on July 16. We have a few selections in mind ourselves. Our last wish list: Outstanding Drama Series.

The Americans
If you like great storytelling, there is no show more carefully plotted than The Americans. Patient but fast-paced, the intricate series uses adrenalized, disturbing (see: tooth extraction, suitcase corpse) spy games and the bleak Cold War era to explore issues of marriage, family, faith and morality. That reached a fever pitch in Season 3 when Philip un-Clark-ed for Martha and Paige finally learned the truth, only to betray her parents’ trust that was built on lies. The Americans has a big hill to climb at the Emmys: It’s only ever been nominated for three awards.

Source: http://www.tvguide.com

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Emmys: Here’s Our Dream Ballot for Lead Actress in a Drama Series

Emmy season is upon us! Voters have until June 26 to fill out their nomination ballots before the big announcement on July 16. We have a few selections in mind ourselves. Up next: our wish list for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

Keri Russell, The Americans
Elizabeth masks much of her vulnerability, which Russell has played with steely ruthlessness. In Season 3, though, she chipped some of that robotic armor away in “Do Mail Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?”, thanks to the wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time Betty. The doomed old lady knew the right buttons to push, forcing Elizabeth to think twice about her resolute belief in the cause. “That’s what evil people tell themselves when they do evil things,” Betty says. The mix of confusion, doubt and sadness in Russell’s face, as she watched a woman she forced to kill herself, is utter perfection.

Source: http://www.tvguide.com

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Emmys: How to Choose the Perfect Dildo and More Secrets From TV’s Top Actresses

THR asked: When were you the most panicked as an actress this season and how did you overcome those fears?

Keri Russell
The Americans (FX)

“The first thing I think of is that scene when we have to tell our daughter, Paige [Holly Taylor], this incredible truth that’s going to change her life forever: We’re spies. It felt like such a big moment in the story. My favorite thing about our show is when the spy stuff falls back and it becomes a family or marriage drama. I had to watch this teenager who’s in so much pain and realize that, as parents, we’re a cause of that because of all these lies. It was complicated on many levels. Holly’s a sensitive, graceful creature, so watching her cry, instantly I’m crying and trying to stuff it in. You just want to make sure she’s OK. And also, I was a kid actor, which I think is Creep City anyway. It’s a complicated way to grow up, and it’s not something I think I’d ever let my kids do. So there was that part of me watching her on this tightrope, and my heart was going out to her. As painful as it was, it became easy to shoot because you’re just reacting in a human way. The character of Elizabeth can be perceived as a not-great mom, but I feel like in that moment, she was trying to be there for her daughter.”

Source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com

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The Americans season 3 finale: EW review

Morality is only moral when it is voluntary.

The Soviet sympathizer Lincoln Steffens wrote that a few centuries ago. Now, Elizabeth and Philip Jennings are learning that lesson the hard way, and it’s made for a captivating season of The Americans. You could argue that every episode was building toward that thrilling moment this season when the Jennings finally told Paige that they’re spies, attempting to rope their daughter into the family business as a “second generation illegal” whose U.S. citizenship could help them infiltrate American intelligence agencies. Though, judging by the season finale, they will soon discover that forcing your own moral agenda on your kids doesn’t work.

The fact that Paige divulged her parents’ secret to Pastor Tim doesn’t necessarily mean the Jennings are doomed. I still think he might be a KGB operative in disguise. This is what makes The Americans so gripping: It allows you to experience the crazy paranoia that Elizabeth and Philip feel, always second-guessing the motives of every new person you meet. For me, it doesn’t make sense that Claudia and Gabriel would allow Philip and Elizabeth to take the massive risk of revealing who they really are to Paige if the higher-ups hadn’t already safeguarded that secret from leaking. And Pastor Tim’s cover is perfect. Who would suspect a Jesus-loving pastor of being a godless Communist? What better way to recruit teenagers for “the cause” than by staging anti-American protests in the name of peace?

Whether or not he’s in on the plan, the idea of Paige turning against her parents is the perfect twist for the show. The Americans has always wrestled with the ways that parents enforce their values on their kids. Now it’s zeroing in on the ways that kids shape their parents’ values, too. Continue reading The Americans season 3 finale: EW review

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