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FX’s THE AMERICANS has its first-season finale tonight, May 1 at 10 PM, but the series was already renewed for a second season by the time its second episode aired. The story begins in the early Eighties, at the beginning of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, played respectively by Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell, have been married almost fifteen years, have two kids and seem to be a thoroughly conventional suburban couple. They are in fact KGB spies for what was then theSoviet Union.Elizabeth is a true believer; Philip is having doubts. More urgently, although the marriage was arranged by their KGB handlers, Philip and Elizabeth are actually starting to fall in love with one another.

For most people, working on a hit television series is the most exciting and challenging job they’ll ever have. Joe Weisberg, creator and one of the executive producers on THE AMERICANS, says this is the case, but he was in fact a CIA agent from 1990-1994. He says the inspiration for the show came from the real-life incident a few years ago, when a group of Russian sleeper agents were uncovered living apparently ordinary lives, though it made more sense to set the story when the Cold War was at its height. Continue reading Exclusive Interview: THE AMERICANS creator Joe Weisberg on Season 1

“You’re the one they want. The one they understand,” Elizabeth Jennings, or rather Nadezhda, a K.G.B. double-double agent under deep cover, tells her husband, Philip, in the season finale of “The Americans.” Elizabeth, played by Keri Russell, is explaining why she should take the more dangerous of two missions—the one they think is a setup—and Phillip should be ready to put their two kids in a car and make a break for Ottawa if it all goes wrong. It does, in ways no one involved foresees; the episode, like the series itself, is about delusions—romantic, political, bureaucratic, tactical, marital, fashion (the year is 1981). And parental: Can Elizabeth really think that her children “understand” a father whom they believe is a travel agent but is actually a spy and assassin who’s just staged a sham wedding with a deluded F.B.I. secretary at which their mother pretended to be his sister? Can the K.G.B. really think that Al Haig might attempt a military coup after John Hinckley shoots Ronald Reagan—a major plot element in an early episode? Maybe they can.

It’s often said, admiringly, that “The Americans” is a show about marriage that is dressed up as a spy drama. One of its premises is that marriage itself is a matter of dressing up and performing, and that those enactments, particularly when children are watching, can be its most genuine part. Paige, the Jennings’s thirteen-year-old daughter, and Henry, her younger brother, watch their parents like spies. They are the hard pegs in a marriage constructed by the K.G.B. as cover for their parents, whose decision, early in the season, to figure out whether they have fallen in love with each other leads to problems on the job and a separation. (“Hitting the pause button,” as Philip describes it, when they give the children the news over a basket of fried chicken.) It’s familiarly sad. Continue reading THE SECRET OF “THE AMERICANS”

Wednesday’s season finale of The Americans left viewers on the edge of their seat as Elizabeth (Keri Russell), not Phillip (Matthew Rhys), walked into a trap set up by the FBI that would’ve resulted in a striking blow to the KGB.

Believing the meeting with a possible intelligence asset is actually an FBI setup, Phillip decides to take on that mission himself, leaving Elizabeth to simply pick up a recording and then get the kids out of town. But it’s Elizabeth’s seemingly simple mission that’s actually the setup. Nina (Annet Mahendru) is able to deduce a coup is coming after Stan (Noah Emmerich) guarantees her extradition, but, because it’s the ’80s and there are no cell phones, the KGB is unable to warn their agents, resorting to more archaic methods to send the abort message. But when Phillip realizes the abort is meant for Elizabeth, he goes straight into the FBI’s trap to save her — and although they are able to escape, Elizabeth gets shot in the process.

Obviously, Elizabeth will survive into Season 2 — they’re not firing Keri Russell, ‘natch — but other characters’ fates are left up in the air, including Claudia (Margo Martindale) who was told she’d be reassigned, but risked her own life to save Phillip and Elizabeth after getting the abort signal. To get the scoop on Season 2, TVGuide.com turned to executive producers Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields. Continue reading The Americans Finale Postmortem: Who Survived Season 1?

Keri Russell may have the svelte figure of a secret agent, but the “Americans” star lacks a crucial quality that her on-screen persona possesses.

“I am literally the worst person at keeping secrets,” Russell told the May issue of Women’s Health. “I’d be the worst spy of all time.”

Russell, 37, opened up about the secrets of keeping her trim physique.

“[There’s] this really nerdy workout I do in my walk-through closet in our brownstone,” Russell said. “I do a workout video and use my own music — whatever is inspiring to me at that time, like Alabama Shakes, The Cure, or Mumford and Sons.”

And the actress doesn’t starve herself, either.

“The perfect weekend for me right now is sleep, sleep, girlfriends, glass of wine and a delicious meal with lots of food,” Russell said. “I am crazy for dessert. I eat everything. No one should be denied anything…just don’t eat the whole thing.”

In fact, Russell came to her moderation scheme later in life. In her 20s, the star confesses, she wasn’t a big fan of salad.

“I don’t think I ate a green vegetable until I was 30,” the former “Felicity” star joked. “I didn’t grow up with a mom who enforced that at all.”

These days, the actress is focused on keeping a balance between her acting life and parenting her two children, Willa Lou and River.

“It’s tough,” Russell admitted. “I try to quell my guilt by saying I’m a better mom if I’m interested in my own life. I’m not resentful. I can be really engaged when I am there. I like the yin and the yang of both worlds, and I think it would be hard for me to give up either one.”

Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/

Keri Russell is abs-olutely fabulous.

The Americans star credits her “nerdy workout” – complete with personalized soundtrack! — for helping her stay slim and impressively toned.

Russell, 37, tells Women’s Health in its May cover story that she has “this really nerdy workout I do in my walk-through closet in our brownstone. I do a workout video and use my own music — whatever is inspiring to me at that time, like Alabama Shakes, the Cure, or Mumford and Sons.”

Plus, she says residing in Brooklyn offers a bonus workout — walking!

“That’s one of the great things about living in Brooklyn and in New York. You get to eat a big rich fatty meal but then you can walk home,” says Russell, who admits she didn’t start eating vegetables until about 30.

“I didn’t grow up with a mom who enforced that at all.”

The former Felicity star, who is mom to daughter Willa Lou and son River, 5, with husband Shane Deary, plays a Russian spy-next-door on the hit FX show that airs Wednesdays at 10, and when she’s training for her role as Elizabeth Jennings she isn’t afraid to break out of her indie workout groove.

“We did do a little fight training type stuff a few weeks before. I did get a bloody lip, which I am sort of proud about, in the boxing training. You should see the other guy though,” she jokes.

The funny, self-deprecating star admits it’s not easy juggling a career and motherhood, but carves out girlfriend time every few weeks and is honest about the difficulties of her competing demands.

“It’s tough,” Russell admits. “I try to quell my guilt by saying I’m a better mom if I’m interested in my own life. I’m not resentful. I can be really engaged when I am there. I like the yin and yang of both worlds, and I think it would be hard for me to give up either one.”

But she’s satisfied with her life for now, except for one thing — her rear-end.

“I’m not a complainer about age. I think my girlfriends all look so much better now than they did 15 years ago. But the thing I notice most is my butt. I used to have a really good, plump butt. Ugh — now my butt’s gone. I do wish I had my 25-year-old butt!”

Source: http://celebritybabies.people.com

It all started with a slap for Matthew Rhys. Trying out for “The Ameri-cans,” he took one in the puss from Keri Russell.

This new FX drama, which airs 10 p.m. Wednesdays, fo-cuses on two KGB spies posing as an ordinary American couple shortly after Ronald Reag-an became president.

As Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, they have a comfortable home in a Washington suburb, two sweet kids, a travel agency they run and, by all signs, a solid piece of the American Dream. No one would suspect they are Russian-born plants bent on burying the United States with subterfuge and brutality.

No one, that is, except their new neighbor, FBI agent Stan Beeman (played by Noah Emmerich with an infectious mix of cunning and dorkiness), who has recently moved in with his family across the street. He represents just one among the many threats of exposure, imprisonment or death they face daily.

“It’s an incredible balancing act to portray: the domesticity of their suburban lives and the struggle of their relationship as an arranged couple, and then the extreme spy stuff,” says Rhys. Continue reading Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys play Russian spies in the ‘burbs

In the new FX drama “The Americans,” Keri Russell plays the role of Elizabeth Jennings, a knockout K.G.B. spy living in America in the early 1980s. With the recent announcement of the show’s second season and a new movie in theaters now (“Dark Skies”), Russell’s one busy lady, but not too busy to chat with T about her new job, closet workouts and newfound love of mascara. Continue reading Face Time | Keri Russell

Keri Russell’s “comeback year” has the feel of a reinvention, a re-branding of the dainty young lovely who burst on the scene with “Felicity” back in the past century.

But as different as her flinty mom in the new film “Dark Skies” (not previewed for critics) might seem, as dangerous and “out there” as her Born Again Bolshevik sleeper spy is in TV’s “The Americans,” she refuses to label her return to public view a career makeover.

“The great think about disappearing is that people forget about you a little bit,” Ms. Russell says. “Your past is forgotten. You can come back as something fresh and new.

“These past two years, I’ve come back to all these interesting things that people might not have thought about me for in the past. They just happened.”

She stepped away from film and TV half a dozen years ago, getting married and giving birth to two children, who are now 1 and 5. At 36, she’s a different person — a mom, for starters. And it’s made her a different actress. Continue reading Motherhood changes Keri Russell’s outlook