Category Articles & Interviews

Keri Russell has had quite a varied career already, performing in things from the teen angsty Felicity to the short-lived sitcom Running Wilde to now getting to do the action thing with FX’s The Americans. She even voiced Wonder Woman in a direct-to-DVD animated adventure a few years ago; lots of genres, but never once sci-fi/horror, until now. Russell stars in the new film Dark Skies, about a suburban family targeted by malevolent forces from another world. She spoke to us about what drew her to the film, what it was like to work with the film’s younger cast members, and the freedom inherent with doing low-budget films. Continue reading Interview with “Dark Skies” Star Keri Russell

Though she’s not a big fan of the genre, Keri Russell knew she wanted a role in the spooky psychological thriller “Dark Skies.”

“I don’t watch scary movies, but it was one of those scripts I read — a little family and very ‘Poltergeist’-y — and instantly liked.

“I believed it and thought it would be fun to go see.”

Though “Dark Skies” tells the story of an other­worldly menace targeting the suburban Barretts, particularly its two young sons, Russell sees it as a family drama.

“This family is falling apart. A husband (Josh Hamilton) has lost his job; they don’t know if they’ll lose the house.

“They’re worried about money, they’re worried about divorce. They’re worried how that might affect their preteen, who is coming into sexuality, meeting friends, those kind of forces they’re not going to be able to control.

“They have all these very real family problems going on and then this outside stuff starts entering. To me that’s a metaphor for this family trying to stay together and keep control — and it’s impossible.

“The world just happens. It’s just Mom trying to be Momma Bear and protect and keep this family together.”

Russell, 36, a married mother of 5-year-old River and 15-month-old Willa, understood Momma Bear Lacy’s denial.

“No one wants to believe it. In fact there are so many signs, she thinks, ‘This is going on.’ But she says, ‘This can’t be happening. This is crazy stuff’ — and yet.

“At the end, it’s so based in the reality of protecting kids she gets really nutty crazy. As we filmed, I was thinking of what some of those parents must have felt like when Katrina was coming.

“This unmanageable thing is headed your way, you’d do anything to protect your kids, you’re totally responsible for them, but you don’t know if you’re going to be able to.

“It’s so heartbreaking and terrifying. I thought about that a lot.”

What’s more terrifying for Russell, facing possible aliens or smashing her nice-girl “Felicity” image with her new TV series “The Americans,” playing a ruthless undercover KGB agent?

“That’s cool. That’s one of the good things about taking little breaks now and then. People forget about you a little bit and you can come back and do something a little fresh.”

(“Dark Skies” opens Friday.)

Source: http://bostonherald.com/

In her breakout role, Keri Russell was the living, breathing, over-thinking embodiment of that generation’s ideal collegiate experience. NYU was their castle, and Felicity was the queen dream. But nightmares are the name of the game these days as Russell’s newest roles, on FX’s The Americans and in The Weinstein Company’s alien-invasion chiller Dark Skies, are tailor-made to keep America up at night.

Whether your safety concerns are for the planet or simply your country, the themes explored in both projects are universally haunting. ETonline recently sat down with Russell to talk about Dark Skies and The Americans, where I learned she was attracted to both larger-than-life roles because of their more intimate elements. Continue reading Keri Russell: I’m A Scaredy Cat

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

This new FX drama, whose third episode airs Wednesday at 10 p.m. EST, focuses on two KGB spies posing as an ordinary American couple shortly after Ronald Reagan 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 that they are Russian-born plants bent on burying the United States with subterfuge and brutality.

No one, that is, unless it’s 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 ‘The Americans’ On FX To Star Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys

WALTER SCOTT ASKS … Keri Russell

The actress, 36, stars as an undercover KGB spy in the 1980s-set drama The Americans (FX, Wednesdays).

You play a spy in the days before the Internet and mobile phones. Could you survive a week without technology?
Definitely! I’m never on my cell phone. I don’t even know why I have one. It’s been fun to go back to this period of time. The actors who play my kids had never seen a rotary phone before!

You’ve taken breaks throughout your career. Why has that been important to you?
I like working hard, but my life outside of my career is equally important to me. Maybe I’m not ambitious enough, but I’m just as interested in my friends and my relationship with my family.

What has been the best change in your life since becoming a mother? [Russell and her husband, Shane Deary, are parents to son River, 5, and daughter Willa, 1.]
You instantly become less selfish. You can’t be the biggest person in the world anymore—they are. It really grounds you.

How do you like to spend your free time?
With my girlfriends, adult beverages, and delicious food!


Online Extra: The star discusses the impact of her hit series Felicity.
It was a really sweet, heartfelt show and it’s funny because the creators were both men in their thirties when they wrote it. I think what people really related to was that time in your life when everything is possible. College is such a monumental time when your path in life is being decided, and it can go so many different ways, and every relationship you’re forming can affect that and I think the show just really captured that.

Source: http://www.parade.com/

So how long did it take you to buy into the premise of The Americans, the new FX show that premiered on Wednesday night? I’m honestly not sure I still accept — that is, can watch without an occasional snort of disbelief — Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as suburban parents/KGB agents, and I’ve seen more than one episode of the thing. But, for sure, I want to keep watching, because this series will either turn into something very special, or descend into the sort of muted, dignified camp that characterizes some would-be classy cable fare.

Russell and Rhys portray Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, Russians who’ve successfully embedded themselves as sleeper agents in a suburb of Washington, D.C. It’s 1981, President Ronald Reagan has declared the USSR an “evil empire,” and one of the Jennings’ two kids needs a training bra and wants her ears pierced. As Reagan’s reelection campaign would soon say, it’s morning in America. Continue reading ‘The Americans’ premiere review: Are you rooting for these Russians?

Tonight, FX premieres The Americans (10 p.m. ET), starring Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as a pair of Russian spies posing as married travel agents living in suburban Virginia in the year 1981.

The Cold War-era series presents an interesting challenge for costume designer Jenny Gering, who joined the show after the pilot episode (where we see Russell wearing a pair of Guess mom jeans).

“Yes, we want to create a sense of place and time and feel like we’re there, but we don’t want to have crazy clichés running around that will take you out of the story,” Gering says. Something that helps: This is the transitional early ’80s. “It’s a completely opposite silhouette to what people consider to be ‘the ’80s.’ In most people’s heads, it’s big and boxy on top and slim on the bottom, and the ’70s are more slim on top and fuller on the bottom. It was just a chance to really show women’s figures and beautiful tailoring. Everything’s very tactual — there’s a lot of leather and suede. And the palette is lovely — there’s very little black and grey, it’s very autumnal.” Continue reading ‘The Americans’ costume designer on Keri Russell’s and Matthew Rhys’ cool Cold War style

FX’s latest drama, “The Americans” (premieres tonight, Wed., Jan. 30 at 10 p.m. EST), stars Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as Elizabeth and Phillip Jennings, Cold War-era Russian spies who have lived, worked and raised a family in America for 15 years as part of a covert mission to gather intel on the Reagan administration’s plans against the Soviet Union.

The Jennings’ lives are further complicated by the defection of another K.G.B. operative, which could jeopardize every undercover agent’s identity; Phillip’s growing affection for American culture; and the unnervingly curious FBI agent (Noah Emmerich), who has just become their neighbor.

HuffPost TV sat down with Russell and Rhys at the recent Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour to find out more about what motivates their compelling characters, whether Elizabeth and Phillip’s marriage is really just a cover story, why Russell said yes to “The Americans” (since she said, “I always say no to everything”), what “honey trapping” is and much more. Continue reading ‘The Americans’ Premiere: Keri Russell And Matthew Rhys Talk Sex, Spy Games And America Vs. Russia