Prime Video’s just released the first trailer for the upcoming action-spy thriller Citadel debuting on Friday, April 28, 2023. Season one kicks off with the release of the first two episodes, followed by a new episode every Friday leading up to its explosive finale.
Prior to the trailer’s launch, Prime Video hosted a global press conference with Citadel stars Priyanka Chopra Jonas (Quantico) and Richard Madden (Game of Thrones) and executive producers Joe Russo, Anthony Russo, and showrunner David Weil. Citadel’s a massive, ambitious project, and the creative minds behind it describe the spy series as a first-of its kind global storytelling project.
“This is a really unique television event, and I think that’s what excites Anthony and I the most about it. The concept was an idea that Jen Salke presented to us a few years ago. The notion of telling a story that could be interwoven throughout the world. It would have a flagship show and then regional shows. You know, written, produced, and directed by regional talent that could interweave with the flagship show,” explained Joe Russo.
He added: “And we thought that, one, that was such a novel idea for a narrative. And, two, an amazing way to create a really diverse global community of storytellers to tell a giant mosaic of a narrative together. And after our work on the Marvel films and spending so much time traveling the globe, this was an idea I think that was really exciting to Anthony and I and ignitable for us. And seemed like an incredible challenge.”
Anthony Russo said Citadel is capitalizing on two trends and, in his words, “smashing them together” for the first time.
“[…] We’ve all been developing a strong passion for narrative universes that have a sprawling expression to them, an interconnected years-long expression to them, where characters change and morph and move between different iterations. And at the same time, we’ve seen this rise in global filmmaking and the ability of non-English language movies and shows to travel to other cultures, and typically the more English language-dominated cultures.”
The trailer does a good job of teasing what’s in store, and David Weil offered more insight into the plot during the press conference.
“Citadel is a story of two top spies. There’s Mason Kane, played by Richard Madden. There’s Nadia Singh, played by Priyanka Chopra Jonas. And they are top spies in the most powerful spy organization you’ve never heard of: Citadel. And that’s, of course, by design. And the day we meet them is the day that Citadel falls. It’s brought down by this nefarious new spy syndicate called Manticore.
We then cut eight years later. We pick up with Mason Kane, he’s living this quiet life in Oregon with his wife and his daughter. And he has no memory of who he was or what his past was. Until one night, there’s a gentleman by the name Bernard Orlick – played by the one and only Stanley Tucci – who knocks at his door and needs his help to take down Manticore before they create a new world order,” explained Weil. “Mason discovers that Nadia’s still alive and the two of them journey the world taking down Manticore and unraveling the very dangerous secrets of their past.”
The Russos and Weil had high praise for Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas who had the difficult task of playing different versions of their characters in season one.
“I think, you know, what Anthony and I really love, too, about this is the high concept of it. That, you know, both Richard and Priyanka get to play multiple versions of themselves. And this notion that their memories have been erased allows them to create new characters who then have to rediscover who they were.
And then, their new personalities come in conflict with their old personalities. And that, to us, that was the idea that I think that most excited us because I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that before. Where you have multiple characters dealing with a crisis of personality and a crisis of conscience. And, you know, so, to have this cast, that also includes Stanley Tucci and Lesley Manville, to be able to portray these complex characters is, you know. This show doesn’t work without the sort of elegant powerhouse performances that they have all brought to the show,” said Joe Russo.
Anthony Russo added: “I want to emphasize, too, that the roles that Priyanka and Richard are playing, I mean they are the highest degree of difficulty, for many reasons we’ve already talked about in the sense that they’re playing two different versions of themselves with different sets of memories and how that processes in terms of their behavior and their choices and their thoughts. But also, again, the idea that they’re playing something that has the highest degree of emotional complexity, at the same time, the highest degree of physical challenge.
And so, for them to be able to do that, to pull off this movie on a physical level, on an acting craft level, on an emotional level, it’s just something that Joe and I and David, we just sit back and marvel at as they bring it to life.”
Priyanka Chopra Jonas described the series – and her character – as layered and complex.
“There’s a word that we used from the beginning, which was duality for every character. What you see is what you don’t get. Don’t believe what you see. Everything is just conceptually crazy,” offered Chopra Jonas. “And it’s just so exciting to be able to share it with the world because it’s been a long time in the making because it’s so ambitious. And I’m very excited about it.”
Asked who Mason is, Richard Madden admitted he’s a complicated man to talk about.
“I don’t know where to start with. I mean, that’s what the joy of this has been, is being able to play these two very, very different characters, but both in the same body. And they are both the same man in lots of different ways, but each version of them, you pull out different aspects of kind of humanity and who we are as people.
And one of them carries a lot of scars from the past and a lot of trauma. And the other one doesn’t carry any of that baggage. He just has a whole bunch of unknown to him, so we end up having these two very different characters. And that’s kind of what was exciting to explore about them is how much of your character traits are built into you, and how much are inherited through trauma and experience?” said Madden.
Priyanka Chopra Jonas described Nadia as carrying a lot of baggage.
“I feel like she has to navigate really thick waters, you know? She has to hold her head up high while her character’s changing, her life is changing all around her, but she has to stay centered because of the burdens that she carries. I think that that makes her just very juicy as a character for me to play because every choice that is made by her is burdened and laden by so much pressure. And she thrives in it, so it was really wonderful.
I mean, Richard and I had a great time. I love working with him. We dance really well together,” said Chopra Jonas. “And this was just a really ambitious show. And I think if we didn’t have each other understanding, you know, what the other needed, this would have been hard to do.”
Richard Madden thinks the series does an incredible job of maintaining high levels of action and character-driven drama.
“There’s huge set pieces in this, and that’s something that’s amazing to be part of. And not only that, but I think oftentimes, we see shows that are 80% drama, 20% action or vice versa. And this show aimed to be 100% of both.
I think that’s what we’ve managed to pull off ‘cause in the middle of these huge sequences with explosions and cars blowing up and all of that that I don’t want to spoil for you, we have this really kind of intimate drama between these two characters and how they dance together.
So, for me, that’s what was so exciting about these huge action pieces was that they are infused with heart and drama and storytelling. We get to see a lot about these characters, how they physically interact, not just great action sequences but there’s drama at the heart of each one of them,” said Madden.
