[This story contains spoilers from the first two episodes of The Agency.]
The Michael Fassbender-starring TV sequence The Agency, like many different current political thrillers, is ready amid the backdrop of real-life geopolitical occasions just like the Ukraine-Russia warfare, with the battle fueling key plot factors within the sequence.
But with the CIA drama, which additionally stars Richard Gere, making its debut on Paramount+ With Showtime simply weeks after the 2024 U.S. presidential election that might usher in international coverage adjustments by way of Donald Trump’s second time period, it’s doable that the state of affairs in Eastern Europe might change considerably in 2025.
Luckily, The Agency already took steps to insulate the world of the present. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter at The Agency‘s New York premiere final month, director and govt producer Joe Wright defined that early on, as The Agency group was engaged on making its U.S. model of the French sequence Le Bureau des Legendes, making an attempt to replace the almost 10-year-old sequence, “occasions saved on overtaking us.”
“So we realized we needed to really be extra particular and plant our pin someplace, so we went for April 2023,” Wright, who helmed the primary two episodes of the sequence, stated of setting the present at a particular level in current historical past.
Selecting that point additionally helps with one other factor of The Agency‘s geopolitical backdrop, the warfare in Sudan, because the sequence is ready earlier than an assault in Khartoum that may have drastically altered the setting and storyline within the present.
“One of our characters goes to Khartoum to be a lecturer there. If we’d set it in September 2023, there was no college left,” Wright defined.
International turmoil isn’t the one approach The Agency displays actual life. Fassbender and Saura Lightfoot-Leon, who performs younger agent trainee Danny, labored with actual CIA brokers to attempt to perceive their undercover characters.
While Lightfoot-Leon stated she spoke to individuals within the CIA and did the “educational analysis” of listening to “plenty of podcasts” and studying up extensively on world information, Fassbender defined that the individuals he spoke to helped him perceive the psychological make-up of his mysterious character, Martian.
“I spoke to any person that was concerned within the company, after which I spoke to any person else. That particular person really was very useful to me as a result of I used to be making an attempt to outline the form of character that the Martian was, and there’s positively sociopathic components to the character, however I do assume he’s making an attempt to wrestle with the kind of particular person he would possibly’ve been earlier than,” Fassbender defined. “What’s uncommon about this character is he’s six years out within the area, non-official, that doesn’t actually occur. That could be a really uncommon factor. Certainly you’d come again fairly fragmented after being out that lengthy. In a approach he’s his personal boss on the market so he’s in charge of his personal future, and when he comes again once more, he has to get re-institutionalized into the company, and that’s tough as a result of now he’s acquired to reply to individuals. Again these sociopathic tendencies the place guidelines are high-quality for different individuals however they don’t apply to him [come into play]. The battle for his soul is what I actually all the time thought it was about between his love curiosity in Sami [Jodie Turner-Smith] and the connection along with his daughter that has suffered — these human components of him which were shattered in quite a lot of methods and he’s making an attempt to place them again collectively.”
Meanwhile, Harriet Sansom Harris, who performs Dr. Blake, a behavioral psychologist despatched to guage the psychological well being of the brokers, didn’t select to check any real-life counterparts within the CIA. Instead, she went off of the personalities of her lawyer relations.
“She’s actually simply there to get below individuals’s pores and skin and to not undermine however to disclose and to get to the reality,” Harris stated. “There are quite a lot of legal professionals in my household, so I simply sort of grew up with that angle of you simply pursue it. And you don’t give floor. And I don’t assume it’s a must to learn quite a lot of tales about what’s that sort of particular person like. You don’t care in the event that they such as you.”
Fassbender, Turner-Smith and different actors aware of the French present additionally had that earlier mission as a approach in to their characters.
“I had form of the template of the French present, so I acquired to actually have a look at that and assume the place is that this going to go, what’s this going to be however clearly [writers] Jez and John-Henry [Butterworth] are placing their very own spin on it,” Turner-Smith stated. “Yes, it is going to be similar to the French present. It goes to be our take with this forged. The producers have all the time been very clear about what they need and the place it’s going and really collaborative and really encouraging.”
Fassbender, who watched Le Bureau in the course of the pandemic, although he might solely observe down the primary two seasons, felt that he couldn’t escape the unique.
“It was all the time there,” he stated. But, finally, The Agency grew to become its personal factor.
“I beloved Mathieu [Kassovitz]’s portrayal,” Fassbender stated. “What I preferred about what he did was that factor of you may’t spot a spy. They sort of must be nondescript, nothing too memorable about what they do. And I like that about him. He’s the particular person within the room that you just wouldn’t suspect. Now I believe my Martian’s a bit of bit extra ego aggressive, if that’s even a phrase, however there was a blueprint there that I might respect and components that I assumed, ‘Well that was actually good what he did.’ And then because it went, it simply began organically taking its personal life, what I used to be doing. I wasn’t intellectualizing an excessive amount of about issues, simply working very intently with the script, quite a lot of repetition with that and simply making an attempt to distill the characters from the web page.”
Alex Reznik, who performs the Belarus-based secret agent Coyote, famous that there’s a French counterpart to his character. But very similar to Fassbender, he discovered himself extra centered on the toll years of being “remoted out of your earlier life and your loved ones” takes on his character.
“In Martian’s case, he’s been away for six years and now he will get to return house. In my case, I’m within the trenches, 4 or 5 years into it. I haven’t spoken to my household in so a few years. The solely data I get is no matter my handler, performed by John Magaro, provides me. So that complete factor of what’s it prefer to reside in that lonely, remoted world and the place does the lie bleed in with actuality I believe goes to be a enjoyable, fascinating half to have a look at because the sequence progresses.”
The first two episodes of The Agency at the moment are streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime. Episodes drop weekly, streaming Friday after which on the Showtime cable community at 9 p.m. on Sunday nights.
