Show targets quotidian life of married assassins
Reboot delves into difficulties, rewards of relationships
Donald Glover and Maya Erskine are debating which of them would make a better assassin. Glover thinks it would be Erskine. Naturally, she thinks the opposite. “I wouldn’t pull the trigger,” Erskine says.
“Are you talking about who’s willing to kill somebody?” Glover asks, his voice rising in amused disbelief.
The argument is relevant: The duo star in “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” a reboot of the 2005 comedic spy thriller about a pair of married assassins that is now largely remembered for unleashing Brangelina on the world.
In the eight-episode series, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Glover and Erskine play disillusioned millennials who accept jobs with an unnamed spy agency and are set up as partners — in marriage and espionage.
Known by their code names, Jane and John Smith, they move into a Manhattan brownstone worthy of an Architectural Digest spread — complete with indoor pool — and, when they’re not stalking their targets in Lake Como, Italy, they enjoy visiting the farmers market and practicing yoga on their rooftop terrace. Initially awkward together, they gradually form an attachment informed by the trauma of the job, and their arranged union becomes a love match — albeit an unusually complicated one.
Created by Glover — who also directs several episodes — and Francesca Sloane, this re-imagined version of “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” departs radically from the source material, in narrative and tone.
Although the series boasts glamorous locations and intense action sequences worthy of a Bond movie, its spy storyline is mostly an afterthought, a MacGuffin that lures us into what is actually an exploration of marriage and the difficulties and rewards of romantic commitment. We never really find out — or care — whom John and Jane are working for or learn much about the greater goal of their various missions. Instead, each episode focuses on a milestone in the Smiths’ relationship: first date, honeymoon, therapy and infidelity.
When it was announced in late 2021 that Glover would follow the inventive, idiosyncratic and often surreal comedy “Atlanta” with a TV adaptation of popcorn fare like “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” many fans were surprised. It’s not what he expected, either.
“I don’t like remakes,” he says. “I think most of the time, they are just kind of wack.”
But a few years ago, producer Michael Schaefer asked him to take a look at the Doug Liman film about a husband and wife who discover that they are assassins working for rival agencies — and have been assigned to kill each other. Glover had never seen it and figured at the very least that he would finally watch this movie that had become such a cultural touchstone for reasons that had little to do with its cinematic virtues.
“I remember watching it like, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t have done it that way at all. They don’t know each other as spies? How is that even believable?’ ” he recalls.
Making the story hot in a deeper, more contemporary way required an authentic sense of intimacy, Glover decided, not just conventionally attractive leads. It also needed a strong female point of view, so he brought the project to Sloane, a standout writer on “Atlanta,” who was initially puzzled by his interest in the material.
“I sincerely thought he was making a weird Donald joke,” Sloane said in a separate conversation.
But she heard him out and grew intrigued by the possibility of humanizing a larger-than-life genre.
“I have always been interested in thinking about the in-between moments, like when do they use the bathroom? Or what happens if they wear the wrong shoes and come home and they have a blister because their shoe was a little bit too small?”
“Fleabag” auteur Phoebe Waller-Bridge was originally attached to star in and create the series with Glover. She left the project in late 2021 due to what has been mutually described as creative differences.
They began to look for a new Jane and couldn’t stop thinking about Erskine, star and co-creator of another groundbreaking, deeply personal comedy, “PEN15.” In the Hulu series, Erskine, then in her early 30s, donned a bowl cut and upper-lip peach fuzz to play a fictionalized version of her 13-year-old self.
“I think ‘PEN15’ is one of the best television shows ever made. It’s so incredible. And it sneaks up on you with how profound it is,” Sloane says. “We were excited to do something surprising with her — like, get her out of the bowl cut.”
“I wanted mustache hairs drawn on just a little,” Erskine jokes.
The genius of “PEN15” lay in the vulnerability of the performances, Glover says.
“I’ve always felt like acting is about embarrassment. If you’re doing it well, like ‘I drink your milkshake’ ” — Glover does a passable impression of Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood” — “it’s embarrassing, because you’re seeing a human being pushed to the edge, and usually those moments are very intimate.”
When Glover reached out about the project, Erskine says she “had no idea what part I was going to play.”
“I was just excited to just talk to him about it,” she adds. “He didn’t say ‘I want a new Jane’ right away.”
When, after several phone calls, he offered her the role, Erskine was quick to say yes — excited by their vision of a more relatable spy duo.
“It was very clear that they were not going for the Angelina Jolie-Brad Pitt ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith.’ We’re not going for perfection,” Erskine says. “We’re going for real nuance, seeing all sides of a character. Let’s show them being rejects. They’re not the perfect spies. And that’s exciting to me.”
Once she was officially on board, Erskine sent what she calls “a weird, big packet I’m really embarrassed about,” detailing her various romantic failures and humiliations.
“It didn’t even need to make its way into the script. It was more like ‘Does any of this line up with the character of Jane? Does it help make her more specific?’ ” Erskine says. The collaboration continued on set. “It would be hard for me to not have any opinion or voice.”
“The romance of filmmaking is really deep in her,” says Glover, who turns to speak to his co-star. “When I’m on set with you, I feel like it’s 1970.” (Coming from Glover, this is the highest compliment.)
Glover and Erskine never did a formal chemistry read, but their in-person rapport is obvious — and helped shape the storytelling during production of “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.”
“We started noticing the places where Donald and Maya had the most chemistry would be when they would be able to laugh with each other and poke fun at each other. And we started shifting more in that way,” Sloane says. “Maya and Donald’s chemistry as actors was happening in real time, which helped the chronological story that was happening on screen.”
This version of “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” will remind many viewers of “The Americans,” the FX drama about a pair of Russian agents in a spicy arranged marriage.
But the show also harkens back to the sophisticated detective procedurals of 1980s broadcast TV, like “Hart to Hart” and “Moonlighting.”
Each episode features a mission of the week and memorable guest stars like Sharon Horgan, Sarah Paulson, Parker Posey and Michaela Coel. In a decidedly 2024 twist, the couple, like Task Rabbits or Uber drivers, receive their assignments via text message from someone they call Hihi, the casual greeting that opens each message. They’re just two covert agents plying their trade in the gig economy.