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airs every Thursday on OSN Series First HD at 11pm. Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell in ‘The Americans’. on a showrunning blind date — “sorta like Philip and Elizabeth,” said Fields. “We have an arranged marriage that’s worked out really well.”
Said Fields, “I think if Philip and Elizabeth had approached their relationship the way Joe and I approached our relationship, there wouldn’t have been a show.”
That’s not quite how things have worked for the series protagonists. Elizabeth has always been the true believer, while Philip has occasionally wavered in his commitment to the mission. At the end of last season, Elizabeth sensed her husband was at a breaking point and encouraged him to take a break from the spy game.
The season premiere skips ahead two years to 1987, a turning point for the Soviet Union and the Jennings’ marriage. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of perestroika and glasnost have created divisions within the ranks of the KGB and driven a wedge between Elizabeth, who’s continued her undercover work, and Philip, who has expanded the family travel agency and grown increasingly comfortable with the bourgeois lifestyle.
The time jump was designed to “match up the history with where they are in their marriage,” Weisberg explained. “It’s a show about political people, ideological people, people who the history affects in very powerful ways.”
Rhys sits in a trailer as make-up artists peel off his blond wig, gently remove a goatee from his face and wipe away a dusting of fake freckles. “It’s like an Indy 500-style tyre change,” said Rhys, who admits he won’t miss this particular aspect of The Americans, even if Philip’s numerous disguises also speak to the complexity of a role that has brought two Emmy nominations.
“You realise you’ve had to play so many things. Now you read scripts and you go, ‘Yeah, but what else is happening to the character? Where are the other dimensions?’” said the actor in his melodious Welsh accent when a loud knock comes from the side of the trailer occupied by Russell, who is also Rhys’ off-screen romantic partner. “I’m being interviewed!” he yelled with feigned outrage.
The interruption prompted a conversation about the Jennings’ marriage, which Rhys described as “a real study of a relationship in its extremity. You’re not just jealous of your partner flirting with someone, you’re jealous of them knowingly going out and [sleeping with] other people.” He and Russell have a running inside joke in which they play extreme versions of their characters. “Phil’s always crying, and Elizabeth’s always like ‘Phil, shut the ... up! Stop being so... sensitive!’” Their gag also seriously highlights one of the more provocative aspects of The Americans — the way in which the female characters are more hard-core and ideological than their male counterparts. There’s also Claudia (Margo Martindale), Elizabeth and Philip’s merciless KGB handler, and their daughter, Paige, an American-born spy in training.
For Russell, twice nominated for an Emmy, the series has been careerdefining. Seated on a stone wall inside Fort Tryon Park after filming a scene with Martindale, she recalled being baffled when FX Chief Executive John Landgraf asked her to play Elizabeth. “I was just riding my bike around Brooklyn, having babies, and I was like, ‘Why does he want Felic- ity to play this Russian spy?’” she said, referring to her role as a wide-eyed NYU student in the late’90s WB drama Felicity. “Now I totally get it. For a girl, it’s such a cool, interesting, creative, tough part. And they’re rare.” The series has been similarly transformative for Martindale, a veteran character actress who is now ubiquitous on the small screen. It’s also earned her new fans, including a man who approached her in her Upper West Side neighbourhood.
“You’re on The American?” she recalled being asked. “I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘I’m ex-KGB. You’re the real deal.’” She paused. “He was kind of cute too.” Showrunners
Joe Weisberg Fields with and Joel lead actress
Keri Russell.
‘RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE’
When The Americans debuted in 2013, the Cold War seemed to be another quaint relic of the 1980s, like Pac-Man or New Coke. But amid headlines about Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election and possible Kremlin collusion with the Trump campaign, the period drama is bowing out at a moment of unexpected topicality.
“Few people are more surprised by the show’s timeliness than Fields, or especially Weisberg, who admitted to “a lifelong fascination bordering on obsession with Soviet affairs and Russian politics.”
As The Americans winds down, there are lessons to be learnt from the era it depicts, Weisberg said.
“We have once before turned Russians into such venal enemies that we fought a long, hard, very painful war with, creating incredible collateral damage.”
He added, “And we’re doing it again.”