Category The Americans

You know it’s weird times when at one end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the president was making headlines for congratulating Russian President Vladimir Putin on a victory in what’s been called a “sham” election, and elsewhere in Washington, multiple investigations were looking into the nefarious doings of our former Cold War enemy on our shores — and meanwhile, smack dab in the middle, there was a red-carpet screening of a TV show that was supposed to be just a stylish drama about 1980s Russian spycraft in the nation’s capital that feels … well, maybe just a little too close to home.

Joe Weisberg, the show’s creator and executive producer (and a former CIA officer, so he knows of what he writes), was strolling the gantlet of reporters and photographers lined up to capture the Tuesday night premiere of the sixth and final season of FX’s “The Americans,” and he was clearly not thrilled that his show’s carefully crafted story lines were colliding with chaotic cable-news chyrons.

“This,” he said of the prospect of running a show about Russian interference in the United States at the very moment when America is focused on Russian interference in the United States, “was not the plan.” Continue reading The Americans previews new season in Washington, where Russia drama is already on TV

On a drizzly night in February, Keri Russell and Holly Taylor walked down a hilly block in Upper Manhattan that was doubling for Reagan-era Washington in a scene from the final season of FX’s spy thriller “The Americans.”

Russell, in character as Elizabeth Jennings, a KGB agent living undercover in the United States in the waning days of the Cold War, was dispensing some tough love to her daughter, Paige (Taylor) a college student sympathetic to the Soviet cause.

“You’re going to have to make a decision: to commit to this life or get out, because sometimes this is what we have to do,” said Russell as Elizabeth. “Are you willing to give up friends and relationships — your life, if you have to?”

The tension between the personal and the political is at the heart of “The Americans,” which returnsfor its final 10-episode season March 28 and centers on Elizabeth and her husband, Philip (Matthew Rhys), a pair of seemingly mild-mannered travel agents and suburban parents who carry out deadly covert missions on behalf of the motherland. Continue reading The Americans prepares to take a final bow on FX

“We’re making a f—ing TV show here!”

Matthew Rhys’ booming stage voice, imbued with Welsh-accented gravitas, fills the commuter train sitting at the edge of the platform at a station in Tuckahoe, N.Y., about 18 miles north of Manhattan. “The Americans,” the beloved FX drama series starring Rhys and Keri Russell, is filming a pivotal scene for its series finale under extremely cramped conditions on a chilly March morning.

The train, borrowed from New York’s Metro-North Railroad, will move back and forth 2,000 feet for three-plus hours while “Americans” director-executive producer Chris Long and his team gather the shots they need.

Rhys, Russell and the rest of the crew are charged up to deliver a powerful conclusion to the six-season saga of the Soviet spy couple masquerading as Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, embedded as a typical 1980s suburban Washington, D.C., married couple with two kids, Paige and Henry. The critical adoration showered on the show has raised the stakes for Team Americans, led by showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields, to stick the landing with the final season that bows March 28.
Continue reading The Americans: Inside Its Six-Season Journey to Critical Stardom and TV History

Goodbyes are hard. Us Weekly chatted with Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys at the red carpet event for FX’s The Americans in New York City on Friday, March 16, where they dished on filming the final scene of the show — and their responses may surprise you.

When asked if filming the was emotional, the 41-year-old actress quipped: “We were mostly just cold. I’m going to be honest.” Her on-and-off screen beau, 43, added, “It was a bad night here. It was freezing. It was snowing. Everyone was like, ‘We just want to get it finished. We don’t care about crying anymore.’”

Though Rhys reveals that “it wasn’t this heroic last scene everyone was expecting,” the duo thinks fans will enjoy. “You hope [fans will love it.] It was always going to be a hard show to tie up, I think,” he told Us. “There are various ways they could have gone with it. They did it incredibly well. I was incredibly satisfied with the way we wrapped it off.”

The two also explained how they’ll definitely miss the folks they worked with daily for the past six seasons. “It was tough. We had a number of [cast and crew] with us for [all] six seasons — saying bye to [them was hard],” Rhys told Us. “It’s a cliche, but it’s true — especially those who had slightly more personal relationship — the boom guys, the camera guys, the focus guys — the grips. You work with them on a physical level. You dance with them a bit. They’re as much a part of it as anything else.”

Russell added: “I think [it’ll be hard to say goodbye to] the crew. We do become sort of a family. Everyone moves on and scatters and does other things. Especially this series – we shoot a lot outside, in New York winter. It’s hard. It’s different than shooting on a stage. You get closer to people. I will miss our camera guys and our grips.”

But the couple, who play spies Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, won’t have to worry about missing each other following the shows end. Russell and Rhys — who have been dating since 2013 — welcomed son Sam in May 2016. “The glory is we will be with each other every day,” Rhys told Us in June 2017.

The Americans airs on FX Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET.

Source: https://www.usmagazine.com/

Thanks to lilypoppy for the full article.

THE AMERICANS’ final season premieres March 28 on FX.

“I DON’T HAVE that feeling anymore. Pulling things off.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m serious.”

This exchange is giving Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell, who play married Russian spies working undercover in the Cold War–era D.C. suburbs on FX’s The Americans—which ends forever in May after six seasons—some trouble. The scene has them removing pieces of the disguises they’re wearing as they speak, which sounds easy enough on the page. (“They begin removing their disguises,” says the script for episode seven out of the final season’s ten.) But it requires Russell, as Elizabeth, to pluck out bobby pins and lift off a wig and Rhys, as Philip, to peel off a mustache and beard that need to stay intact for reuse later, while timing their movements and staying centered, sitting on a hotel bed in front of a mirror, so cameras can capture their reflections. Oh, and they have to look completely natural the whole time. Continue reading Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys aren’t as sad about the end of their show as you might think

In this week’s episode, Variety‘s executive editor of TV, Debra Birnbaum, talks with “The Americans” stars Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell about what’s in store for the acclaimed series’ final season. And in the second half of the podcast, “Trust” stars Donald Sutherland and Hilary Swank and director Danny Boyle discuss why they wanted to tackle the story of the Getty kidnapping.

“Everyone dies,” jokes Rhys about “The Americans” finale. “Knowing that it’s coming to an end hasn’t quite sunk in yet.”

While they won’t reveal any specifics about the Jennings’ fate, Russell reveals, “We just read the end, and I have to say it’s incredibly satisfying.”

Agrees Rhys, “I thought it would be difficult for them to tie everything up in one neat parcel [but] I don’t personally believe any real stone was left unturned.”

The final season opener, which is set in the late ’80s, finds the couple at odds with each other — distanced by Philip’s decision to leave the family business.

“There’s a thawing in the Cold War, where there’s this freezing between Philip and Elizabeth,” says Rhys. “That thawing affects directly their relationship.”

What further complicates their relationship is that Paige (Holly Taylor) is even more engaged in the family business, training as a spy, with each of them on opposite sides.

“I wonder if Elizabeth even questions if Paige is right for this,” says Russell.

Source: http://variety.com/

“The Americans” finally broke through at the Emmys with a Best Drama Series nomination for its fourth season, but the Cold War thriller is back to being the underdog two years later, as it gears up to contend for its final season, which premieres March 28 on FX.

By the time that “The Americans” received its Best Drama Series nomination, it had amassed 12 nominations from the Television Critics Assn. — more for its first four seasons of any show ever, except “The Sopranos.” “The Americans” then fell out of the Emmys’ Best Drama Series lineup last year for its fifth season. For the first time, “The Americans” received only one nomination from the TCA, no Critics’ Choice Award nominations and it was not listed among the annual American Film Institute’s Top 10 Programs.

Based on the first three episodes of the 10-episode sixth season, “The Americans” is continuing with its more intimate pace. These episodes are light on watercooler developments, so no plot points are embargoed from mention in advance reviews. For the most part, both KGB operative Philip Jennings (2016/2017 Best Drama Actor nominee Matthew Rhys) and FBI agent Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) are out of the spy game, leaving Keri Russell (2016/2017 Best Drama Actress nominee) with the meatiest acting material, as her character — KGB operative Elizabeth Jennings — trains her and Philip’s daughter Paige (Holly Taylor) under KGB handler Claudia (2015/2016 Best Drama Guest Actress winner Margo Martindale).

“The Americans” is positioned well for Emmys nominations by virtue of this being its last chance. The Emmys are infamously stingy when it comes to awarding final seasons, but continually give “goodbye hugs” at the nominations stage. The finale of “The Good Wife” was divisive at best, but earned the show its first Best Drama Writing nomination in six years, since its pilot. The final season of “Downton Abbey” that same year got the show back into the same category for the first time in three years. Maggie Smith also won Best Drama Supporting Actress, having been snubbed altogether the year before for the first time in the role, which had previously won her two Emmys.

Like Smith, Margo Martindale of “The Americans” was nominated for each of the first four seasons, including two wins, then was snubbed for the penultimate season. That Martindale has finally joined the main credits sequence this season suggests that she will have more material than ever before.

If “The Americans” adds a first-time nomination this year, it might be Noah Emmerich, who scored a Critics’ Choice nomination as Best Drama Supporting Actor for the first season. The Emmys continually nominate performances for final seasons that they had wholly ignored prior, including Becky Ann Baker (“Girls”), Ann Dowd (“The Leftovers”) and Laurie Metcalf (“Getting On”) in the past two years.

Source: http://www.goldderby.com/