Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell star as Russian spies living in America masquerading as an all-American type couple with two kids and a nice home in FX’s critically acclaimed series, The Americans. The Americans, set in the 1980s, accomplishes the difficult – and tricky – task of making American viewers root for these Russian spies who aren’t afraid to go to any length necessary to steal America’s secrets without exposing their own identities.
Rhys, Russell, and series creator Joseph Weisberg have created characters the audience can embrace, even if viewers don’t agree with or support their beliefs and actions.
As season two of The Americans (airing on Wednesdays at 10pm ET/PT on FX) comes to a close, Matthew Rhys participated in a conference call to discuss the riveting drama.
Matthew Rhys Interview
Do you think that Philip feels guilt over the people he’s killed?
Matthew Rhys: “Yes, absolutely. I think part of what Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields…well, all the writers, really…I think there’s an element that Philip and his feelings and point of view is slightly more socially conscious. Elizabeth has less of a hard time in doing so because her belief in her mandate is so strong whereas, as we saw from the first episode of the first season, Philip is incredibly torn as to where their future lies or where his beliefs and loyalties lie.
So I think the killing of people is now more of a survival instinct for Philip; it’s more so the security of his family isn’t breached. That’s his primary goal in life. I think he has to be the best spy he can be, and if that means killing people, unfortunately – if it means securing his family’s identity and future – then he’ll do that. But that’s where his motivation comes from.”
Do you do a lot of your own research or do you depend on the writers to develop the character for you?
Matthew Rhys: “It feels, to me, it’s an amalgamation of a number of things. Sometimes writers take from what they see and steer a character in that way. The evolution can be quite natural, I think, in that there’s input from both parties. The more sort of technical-related issues, then yes, I’ll do my own research or talk extensively with Joel who always has great input obviously because of his CIA background. Yes, it’s an amalgamation of a number of inputs, really, and I always find usually in television, because you have a length of time, it does tend to evolve quite naturally from all parties.”
Do you think Americans have a hard time sympathizing with Russian spies, even as fictional characters? With the recent tensions with Russia, do you think that might spark more interest or be more of an obstacle to people being able to sympathize with your character?
Matthew Rhys: “I’m not sure. I’ve spoken with those people who didn’t watch or couldn’t get into the show because they didn’t want to sympathize with Russian characters; I don’t know if that tends to be with a person of a certain age. But I think there’s a great success story in what the writer’s done in making the two main protagonists antiheroes in a way in that you are obsessively rooting for the bad guy. But I think what they’ve successfully done is made them fully fleshed and fully drawn out very human characters.
To be perfectly honest, I don’t know whether the troubles in the Ukraine would spark more or less interest in the show. But yes, I would agree that making your two main characters the enemies would certainly come with its challenges. But then I enjoy the elements in the show, the way they do sort of turn things on its head and ask an audience to question a little more.”
This season the dynamic in the family has changed so much and that’s been another thing that Philip has to deal with, especially when it comes to Paige. How has that been to play?
Matthew Rhys: “I think it’s another fantastic element that they brought to the show and not just one that’s been added for good measure but with real reason, that you have two young children who’ve been lied to their entire lives and all of a sudden they’re coming of age and the parents’ suspicious behavior and the long absences, the phenomenal amount of laundry that they have to do – questions are going to be raised.
It seems to be a very natural progression and it raises questions in Philip, certainly with Paige. I think he’s desperate for her not to take over a life that [had] his entire life which is the life of just duplicity, deceit, and lies. He’s desperate for her to avoid that. It pulls on him emotionally in an enormous way. That just makes it that much more interesting. It’s another great conflict within the family that lends itself.”
What is it like being a Welshman playing a Russian, who’s masquerading as an American, who’s been masquerading as all these other people? When you’re doing all of that, how much of that layering are you having to process and how much do you just focus on the character you’re playing at the moment?
Matthew Rhys: “The simple answer is it’s a great bonus. It’s a great advantage to me. At first, I kind of went at it from that point of view thinking, ‘Oh I’m a Welsh Russian playing an American,’ and it just makes for a great amount of confusion. In its simplest term, I’m a foreigner pretending to be American, which is what I was doing on Brothers and Sisters and now I’m legitimately doing it on The Americans. It helps my cause enormously that I’ve been through it in doing Brothers and Sisters. What I was genuinely doing was trying to be a foreigner assimilating to an American point of view, so I know exactly what it is.
It’s strange with all the accent work I was doing on Brothers and Sisters more often than not, the dialect coaches say, ‘You sound right, but you don’t sound like an American,’ if that makes sense. It’s more about an inner tempo. You just have to be in the country for long enough to get the right rhythm and right cadence, and that took a long time – something I’ve been familiar with.”
Can you talk about the “Martial Eagle” episode and in particular the scene in which were Philip was screaming at Paige? What went into creating that scene?
Matthew Rhys: “Yes. The training I received many, many years ago when I was at college in London; a very strong philosophy-based training where your real emotion, your true emotion is used, and there’s a term they used called emotional memory or emotional callback. I just used something from my own past that was similar that would elicit the same feeling, and then you kind of go through an emotional trigger that gets you to that base so you kind of access an emotion that comes quite easily. That was the primary focus for that scene.
I think Philip realizes that it’s a number of things. Obviously the pressure on him is enormous, and he realizes there’s an element with his daughter that she’s slipping out of his reach. And in that way that so many of us do, you lash out because you feel helpless. That’s how I went about it.”
There are so many difficult aspects of playing Philip from the accent to the costume changes to all these different personas. What do you find has been the most challenging part of doing this series?
Matthew Rhys: “The accent is always a tricky part for me because I think such a large part of your brain is working towards that, so you have to sort of stay on it as much as possible. I think just the physical filming of this series is incredibly difficult for the simple reason the scene count we have, the amount of days we have to shoot, the jumping from disguises, it’s a big juggling act, this series, and the pace at which we shoot.
In a day, you’re in the chair, a wig is going on your head, and you don’t even know if you’re doing a pick up shot or whatever. You can’t remember what episode it was from. It’s kind of keeping your head sane in the madness and keeping a focus on where you are in the arc of the season and just trying to keep level-headed with the madness of it all.”
You directed a few episodes of Brothers and Sisters. Is there any chance that you might direct an episode of The Americans?
Matthew Rhys: “Foolishly or arrogantly or ignorantly, before starting shooting this series, I thought, ‘Oh I’d love it if there was a possibility that I could direct an episode.’ Having seen the pace at which we shoot and the hours which we shoot, I was is incredibly indulged on Brothers and Sisters whereby they wouldn’t write me late in the episode before I would direct so that I could prep and all the rest.
They’d also run me light in the episode I was directing, so I was incredibly looked after on that series. In this series, there’s absolutely no way I could do both jobs without either killing myself or the use of incredibly heavy drugs.”
The Jennings are really separated from what’s going on at the Russian Embassy. Do you actually get to know what goes on with that part of the story?
Matthew Rhys: “Just purely from reading the script I do enjoy what’s going on because I think there’s so much juice in their storylines, the Nina-Stan one especially. But purely just because the way we shoot we never see those guys, I very rarely have a scene with Noah [Emmerich] and that’s really my only communication. We rarely cross paths in the make-up trailer. We don’t get to see them; we don’t go on their set. It is like, in that way, you’re sort of separate entities working toward the same goal.”
We see so many instances where Philip and Elizabeth get to work on their marriage, but he’s also working with a whole other different marriage to Martha even though it’s a lie. Could you explain the exploration of that in this season versus the first?
Matthew Rhys: “It’s bizarre because obviously there’s an ulterior motive. The other thing I struggle with is I find myself in these situations doing these scenes with Martha and you kind of think, ‘Oh my gosh, this is so bizarre.’ But the bizarre element is that this was an incredibly successful operation for the KGB and something they advocated enormously, which was the partnerships and managers of low level security-cleared staff that they could infiltrate. This is something very real and very true.
However, the pitching of where indeed to pitch this relationship is very difficult because ultimately you want to make it as believable as possible. The motivation is different; it’s two-fold in a way, I think. One is obviously to gain intelligence. But also if this relationship goes awry, then his whole identity is compromised as is his family therefore the stakes are incredibly high.
It’s a real tightrope walk for him in that he either has to be real, because it inevitably will and has turned into a real relationship, but he also has to remember what he needs to succeed in doing is: a) getting information; and b) not blowing his cover. It’s a knife’s edge for him, something I’d imagine causes a number of ulcers.”
You get to wear all these different disguises and different wigs and become different characters. Which one is your favorite to play, aside from Philip?
Matthew Rhys: “My favorite character is one of them that has shoulder length hair and a mustache and a little goatee and he’s usually a worker man, a phone electrician or caretaker. He usually wears the blue jumpsuit and it has a tool belt. I enjoy him just purely because I’ve given him such an elaborate and detailed backstory. As all of us do. We sort of give them alter-egos and give them these fantastic biographies. Mine is a flamenco dancer from Seville.”
Can you tell us a little bit about what we can expect in these final two episodes?
Matthew Rhys: “Yes. There is an enormous about-turn in the last episode that I think keys up the third season beautifully in a way that’ll bring in a greater conflict for Philip and Elizabeth. Having seen them separated for the majority of the first season because of what they were going through, and then reunited for the second season – which is great to see – what happens at the end of the finale is, I think, going to bring such division to the two of them and will be very interesting to see how they play out.
I think what’s so great about this season is the sort of continuity of a storyline within every episode, and the great danger off of a rogue force that they find uncontrollable. I think it plays beautifully to their paranoia as a lifestyle that they can’t sustain, because they realize how dangerous their lives are becoming. They’re shooting at the end of season one giving way to the killing of the family at the beginning of the second season; they realize that they’re very fallible. They’re not untouchable and that’s going to be a great upset to them.”
Philip decided to use Annelise as the honey trap rather than Elizabeth. What do you think that means in terms of where Philip’s at in his relationship with Elizabeth?
Matthew Rhys: “I think it shows quite clearly that he doesn’t fit well with the honey trapping now. Season one was seeing how the two of them — as they developed these real feelings — how that changes the game for them in season two is very apparent. These real emotions have developed for the pair of them and now, certainly, the conflicts between that and their mission statement, their mandate, it makes for very difficult, although interesting dramaturgically, difficult situations whereby the thought of Elizabeth honey trapping, it preys on him enormously. That’s why he chose to use Annelise because his feelings have evolved and grown so much and are now very real.”
We’ve seen Philip and Elizabeth take opposing views on Paige’s newfound religion. Why do you think it is that Philip is so much more lenient, and some might even say forgiving, than Elizabeth both in parenting and on the job?
Matthew Rhys: “I think for a number of reasons, really. His assimilation to the United States has been easier than Elizabeth’s because — and this was my own personal backstory that I gave to him – growing up in post-World War II Soviet Union would have been incredibly difficult and incredibly great hardships and poverty. Though they were indoctrinated at a very earlier age, he’s come of age, Philip, and he’s realized he has a family that he loves and wants to secure their future, and that’s threatened. However, he’s accepted the United States as a newfound freedom. There’s a number of trappings that he enjoys enormously.
I think he’s easier on his children because he knows… I’m sure there’s guilt about the lives they’re leading, the deceit they’re feeding them, and also in a way where he wasn’t allowed to be the person that he wanted to be. They were, to a degree, sort of brainwashed. I think he wants his child, even if they are in opposition to him, he wants his child to have those choices to form who she is independently, to be whoever she wants to be and to live the life she wants to live, which is something he certainly wasn’t allowed. So I think he allows them a greater freedom and is that little bit more forgiving.”
