Matthew Rhys – The Americans

By starrymag | March 20, 2014

Q) Could you just talk a bit about working with Keri?

A) She is everything I imagined that has been reported about her in the past as sort of the consummate professional when she turns up.  She is a real dream to work with, to be perfectly honest.  I said about her the other day, nothing is a problem for her even when it is.  She takes that sort of ethos on the set every day.  We do have a lot of fun.  There is a lot of sort of poking fun at each other, but we do make each other laugh, which is great.

Q) Last week’s episode seemed to me to be such a game changer for Philip with this revelation that not only the people he’s worked for, but also his wife, has betrayed him.  I was wondering if you could just talk about how that will inform the second half of the season?

A) Yes, sort of fantastically so, I think.  You hit the nail on the head in saying it is a game changer.  So many things changed, in many ways irreparably, to a degree in that you wonder a) how he’ll be able to recover with Elizabeth and indeed the people he worked for.  It sort of solidifies and consolidates everything he was beginning to believe, not about her, but certainly about the KGB anyway. It makes for that great pressure as something now must happen from that.  Certainly in the episodes we’re shooting now, I think Philip is in this great transition.  It’s like stalemate because he knows he wants to make a move and he wants to do something about it, it’s just he isn’t quite sure how to get out, really.

Q) What’s been the bigger challenge for you on the show, the more emotional stories or the action?  We know you can do the emotional stuff, but the action you also kick ass in.

A) That’s very kind of you to say.  I actually have a magnificent stunt double.  I just wish he could do the same with the emotional stuff.  The draw of the part was always the emotional stuff; that sort of incredibly complex relationship you find them at.  Sort of steering that emotional voyage has been, for want of a better cliché, for want of a better pretentious cliché, has been this sort of hard element to it all. I look forward to the action stuff because it’s like a welcome break from this sort of slightly heavier emotional stuff.  It’s like doing games when you’re at school.  You didn’t call it games, you called it P.E.  What do you call it here?  Sports.  Phys Ed.

Q) One of the best parts of the show I think is just seeing where your relationship is going with Keri and the marriage and how you guys are kind of finding each other at this very weird time.  Where is that going to go?  Is that going to be kind of the thrust of the series as a whole, or are we going to get kind of a resolution in the first season?  What can you tease about that coming forward?

A) I don’t think the resolution is quite possible given what they’ve been through and the amount of back and forth, you know the chess game they play with each other where revelation after revelation has come out and the amount of betrayal involved.  I don’t think will be resolved overnight and I think that’s sort of the glorious element to it, is that it can’t be a quick fix relationship.  There has to be some sort of long road of recovery for it to have any longevity.

Q) The Brits have had some really great spy scandals.  Was this something that was fascinating to you before you even got this script?

A) Absolutely.  I think universally the world of espionage has always been of great interest just because of its mystery, but you’re right there are a number of very famous spy scandals that happened in the United Kingdom, one of which we borrowed directly from in The Clock, when Elizabeth uses the umbrella to poison the young man.  That actually happened on Waterloo Bridge, was it in the 90s or the 80s, I can’t remember.  So, yes, we grew up with the whole Cold War espionage thing on our television screens every day.  It was certainly of interest to me.

Q) How does Philip kind of balance that friendship and spying going forward?

A) I think he’s a little torn about Stan, to be perfectly honest.  Philip does come from a decent moral place in many ways and he has a love for the lifestyle they’ve created.  I think part of that is this sort of white picket idyllic idea of having a best friend in a neighbor.  I think he genuinely does like Stan, although he tells Elizabeth it’s good to keep your enemies closer, I think with Stan there is a genuine fondness there.  It’s unfortunate that in a way he is manipulating him for information.

Q) Will they ever kind of, by the end of the season, come face to face again kind of similar to what happened in the garage?  Is that possible?

A) I’m not sure.  I’m not sure what the end of the season entails for them.  I’m hoping they go on a fishing trip and fall in love, to be honest.

Q) We get the impression that Philip’s commitment to the motherland is kind of wavering slightly.  Do you think that Philip would put his children before his country or his country before his children?

A) I think where you find him in the first episode is exactly that.  I think he’s come to a point in his life where he is no longer defined by his job.  His job no longer defines him and as you said the priority now in his life is his children.  I think he’s realized that their job has a shelf life and that the vice is slowly tightening and it’s something they can’t sustain.  I think his real ambition in life is to secure the future for his children and for him and Elizabeth, really.  I think that’s his super-objective is to make sure that they’re all safe.  The only real way to do that is to get out.

Q) How do you think the recent bonding between Stan and Philip is affecting the already strained marriage of Philip and Elizabeth?

A) It certainly is.  I think Elizabeth has a great mistrust of Stan and Philip being friends.  She regards, obviously, understandably, she regards the fact that he’s an FBI agent as incredibly dangerous and distance is what they should be putting between them.  Yes, in the multitude of things that’s already wrong with this marriage that certainly doesn’t help.

Q) I wanted to find out if maybe you could tell us what perhaps were some of the initial acting challenges you found stepping into this role and what type of prep did you do prior to the start of filming?

A) When I first read the pilot—and I know I’m sure actors talk about this age-old analogy often, but it really, truly had everything, actually that’s not an analogy, it had everything that you generally want as an actor.  It had, at its core, this incredibly complex relationship, which clearly would have a long journey ahead of it as to whether it could or indeed will resolve itself.  Then also, you add to that mix 15 years of pretense of domestic marriage with 2 children and then on top of that the extremity of what they do for a living.  It really is something that has everything. You then have within that, their work, a sort of multitude of characters they have to play and then as you see, on top of that the whole action element, which is fantastic.  We did a few weeks’ martial arts training and Joe Weisberg, the creator, who is an ex-CIA operative himself, did some counter-surveillance work with myself and Keri so we did a little bit, plus all the reading and watchingdocumentaries.

Q) Matthew, have you found the period piece itself with the wardrobe, the sets, the way of speaking, have you found that all conducive to helping you get into your character every week would you say?

A) Absolutely.  I think any physical influence like that will inevitably help steer and guide you as a character.  I think just the way it obviously aids us as a dramatic piece, we’re not in an age of technology and that you realize that espionage at the time was incredibly based on human intuition and ingenuity, really.  It aids it all, really.

Q) I know there has been a lot of chatter about being able to take the angle that you are with this series because so much time has elapsed since this period in American history.  I was just wondering if playing kind of the other side of the coin has changed how you look at current issues happening in the world today, or perhaps looking back at that era as well?

A) Certainly, and it’s the one common that keeps coming up time and time again, is that people will say I can’t believe I’m rooting for a KGB agent and I think the reason being is regardless of who they are and what their background is, as soon as you present an audience with a very human or universal themes or problems then they’re instantly relatable. It is that thing, although with the indoctrination they had at an early age and we kind of think that’s the KGB way and that there was this sort of hard core browbeating of their manifesto, as soon as you realize the more human problems they have, you realize exactly that, that they are just humans.  Yes, my sympathy or my empathy is always realized once you sort of understand that these people are human like the rest of us.

Q) Did you speak Russian prior to the role, or did you learn it for this particular role?

A) I was fluent before I took the part, funnily enough.  No, I wasn’t at all.  I’m being scoffed at by my publicist because she is actually fluent, born and raised in Russia, funnily enough.  No, I wasn’t.  You will, in fact, unfortunately hear me butcher the beautiful language of Russian in an upcoming episode.  It’s been a little bit of a linguistic struggle for me.

Q) What do you want to accomplish this season for yourself personally and professionally with this role?

A) To be perfectly honest, landing this part and playing out this season has been, and I say this sincerely, an absolute career high for me.  It’s a heaven-sent part and production, to be perfectly honest.  I hope, as we all do in summing or wrapping up a season, that it will give the audience enough resolve for a taste of satisfaction, but ultimately, that it will leave enough mystery and intrigue to bring an audience back for the next season.  That would be my goal.

Q) I was wondering if there was anything about this role that wasn’t originally scripted for you that you added to the character?

A) The hair I brought myself.  No, not really.  It was part of the enormous draw of the first episode that it was so incredibly well written.  We’re incredibly lucky with the team of writers, helmed by Joe Weisberg, that it’s very rare that there is a need to bring anything because it’s all so much on the page.  If you just stick to the script you’re not going to go too far wrong.  I just made myself incredibly unimaginative in saying that I didn’t bring anything to the part.

Q) What have been some of your favorite moments from filming?

A) I suppose the scenes for me the most satisfying, the boundaries we push emotionally and psychologically as sort of Philip and Elizabeth further push their own relationship in striving for potential or possible relationship, you realize for two people to spend so long together and who are trained to gather, glean, and gain information, they’re incredibly bad communicators with each other. It’s been a slow creep for the two of them in getting to where they are.  There is a lot of push and pull in the relationship that sort of sets them back and pushes them forward and sets them back further.  It’s those scenes I find most rewarding as you very slowly, and sometimes painfully, chip away at the veneer of what their relationship is.

Q) Yes, I happen to love the scene where he says he’s going to stand up for her because she was in a fight, because he is her husband.

A) Yes, it was.  That’s a very short scene; I think so much was said in it.  Strangely enough, it’s had quite a reaction from a couple of people who’ve stopped me on the street saying it had quite an effect.  I think it was very telling and again another frustrating element of him, but there is this half realized position he’s in of being her husband, not being her husband, and being allowed to be protective and not allowed.  Those are the gray areas, I think, where the most interest lies.

Q) Elizabeth has always had like Gregory as a confidant and lover over the years, do you think we’ll see a similar confidant and lover come forward for Philip?

A) I don’t think so.  I think his reaction when he found out about Gregory—it was so hurtful to him that she had lied to him for so long, and that he was genuine in his reaction when he found out that although obviously they live this strange lie of a relationship, it was true when he said he never lied to her about anything.  He’d always kept it very open.  I honestly don’t think so because his reaction was so sincere.  I think he was incredibly hurt by Gregory.

Q) Matthew, the other thing I wanted to ask you about was last week I thought it was very interesting that the kids lied to the parents, which is a role reversal of what has been going on, I think their entire lives as the parents living a lie to the children, but you saw the kids acting a little bit like typical children and maybe telling their parents some lies. I also thought that they’re getting older now and more aware of what might be happening.  Could you talk a little bit about how their relationship with the kids might evolve in the second half of the season?  Will we see them becoming a little bit more aware of what’s going on with their parents or more lying on their behalf?

A) I don’t know.  I think that’s an incredibly interesting sort of element as to how much they will know or when indeed they do know.  Joe Weisberg, the creator of the show, actually an operative—he said that there is this time in the CIA when operatives do get together and usually in training and they end up as couples or they end up getting married.  Sometimes they’re asked by the CIA to work as couples; they inevitably have children. They have these foreign assignments where they’re posing as families.  Then there comes a time in that whole timeframe where there is this sort of special day; this day that is this kind of thing within the CIA that people know about when operatives tell their children.  I was asking when does that happen?  They said there is no real timeframe, it’s just when they think the child is mature enough to take the information. I said, “Well, how is it received?”  He said, “A number of different ways.”  Children sometimes feel incredibly relieved because they’ve sensed that there is something odd has been happening their entire lives and they haven’t been able to put their finger on it.  Other children are dismayed that their parents have lied to them for so long.  Then some children are just ecstatic at the fact that their parents have turned out to be spies. It’s a very real situation whereby this would happen where they would sit the kids down and say this is what we do.  I think dramaturgically it opens up an enormous array of directions in which they could take it.  Who knows, is my long winded answer.

Q) Do we see even the kids asking more questions this season, just being more curious about their parents?

A) Not really.  There is certainly nothing we’ve shot up until now or are shooting does that happen.  So, no, it’s still an open playing field for them to play with.

Q) Matthew, I wanted to ask since this is such a groundbreaking show, how do you want the inaugural season to be remembered creatively?

A) I think you’ve just done it to be perfectly honest.  When I came to the project I remember thinking this is a concept or a premise that I’ve never seen before.  I just think I hope it’s remembered for that really, that this is such a unique situation that offers so many platforms for sort of great drama that I just hope that that’s how it’s remembered as an inaugural season.

Q) Since FX is known for being one of the best and it’s centered around Russia, have you found that you have a new appreciation or love for things Russian?

A) I do.  It’s lucky that my publisher is Russian and speaks Russian so that’s aided me enormously.  Yes, with the research that we were doing, obviously, a lot of the research I did for Philip was exactly that, which was just to research the Russia that he would have grown up with so I could better understand maybe why it was he wanted to defect.  I’ve certainly found a new passion for Russian male voice choral singing.

Q) I was wondering if Philip had a gun with one bullet and he was in a room with both Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, who do you think he would shoot?

A) Oh, now there is a great question and one potentially that could get me into a lot of trouble, obviously.  Yes.  I’m not sure.  I think it would probably— Oh, God, that’s an incredible question for a number of reasons.  I think where we meet Philip, he has this great capacity for violence and murder, but I think in his heart he is a good guy.  I think seeing as Mikhail did more, a little to a degree for that movement with Perestroika and Glasnost, he’d probably shoot Reagan, I think.

Q) Do you think that his feelings when he first arrived in the U.S., that they would change as of now after he’s been in the U.S. for so many years?

A) Absolutely.  I think when he first arrived he, like Elizabeth, was as hard-lined as her and they were there for a very specific mandate.  I think it’s his time there that’s changed him.  I think what’s consolidated that more than anything is the birth of his children.

Q) Were you surprised at all that since Keri’s associated most with Felicity, this really sweet type of person, that they would cast her in this role where she’s really the tougher one in the couple?

A) I thought it was an incredible piece of casting by FX.  In the same way there is this sort of slight mirror that to the KGB would have chosen someone who you wouldn’t naturally look at and say, oh, KGB operative, in the same way FX cast, not just, when you look at Keri, you pretend she’s – you don’t go KGB operative, but as you say, she comes with this sort of American tele-visual history of being this sweet person. Then they’ve 180’d that casting on its head.  I really appreciate when casting is that original and daring in a way.  I thought it was a shrewd piece of casting on their behalf for those two reasons.

Q) Now that you’ve been renewed for season two and your plans for next year are kind of locked in, I guess, do you have any plans for your hiatus or anything else in the works during your time off?

A) I am trying to solidify, at the moment, a horse trip to Mongolia to take in April, which I’m incredibly excited about.  So, no work work, but that to me is my idea of heaven.  I’m just trying to finalize plans on that at the moment. It’s a horse expedition in Mongolia.  I’m looking forward to that enormously.

Q) Did you always want to work in this industry while you were growing up or did you have other professions in mind?

A) I’m not sure, that might be a chicken or egg question.  When I was growing up and I sort of wanted to be all these sort of classic boyhood things like a soldier and a cowboy and all those other things.  I think there must have been a point when I realized if I was an actor I could play all those parts—do all those things and then sort of go home at the end of the day.  That’s the glory, in a way, of doing this crazy, maniacal job is that you do get the opportunity to live out boyhood fantasies and at the moment I’m ticking the box on the spy one.

Q) What would you say makes a career in this industry rewarding for you so far?

A) For me personally, I would have to say it’s the variety of which I’ve experienced.  I’ve been incredibly lucky to sort of bridge a number of mediums, be it film, television, and my sort of real love, which is the theater and others as well, such as radio.  It’s the variety of it that I’ve enjoyed enormously, I think.  I think it keeps you, I’m certainly sorry, I can speak personally; it keeps me fresh in a way when I’m challenged in that way.

Q) I was wondering if you’ve enjoyed getting back to the 1980s?

A) I have, I have.  They were very formative years for me sort of growing up.  There have been elements of the clothes—we sort of go, oh my God, I remember my mom wearing these and things like that. Strangely enough, it was a time where we were watching American television so I have this strange, slightly removed nostalgia when the cars come out and obviously the American crew and cast go oh, I remember this car.  I remember those cars watching them on television thinking oh, my God, they’re so exotic, those Mustangs and Buicks, and now I’m sort of being allowed to drive one recklessly, which is fabulous.

Q) Speaking of the car, are we going to hear Philip singing along to Madonna while he’s driving any time or anything like that?

A) I don’t know, that’s a sort of glorious element of the ’80s.  It has this wealth of, for a large number of us, nostalgic music.  I think the sad reality is it costs so much money, but it would be fabulous to have some of the more prominent music from the ’80s sound along in a muscle car just before going to beat someone up.

Q) What do you think he would be listening to?

A) Probably something of that time, “Come on, Eileen.”  I think generally he’d just be singing “Come on, Elizabeth” as he inevitably and perennially pleads with her.

 

*CONFERENCE CALL*