The Diplomat: Thrills and spills galore for second season of Netflix show
The Diplomat: Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell in the Netflix series.
AUDIENCES will get to discover the fate of US Ambassador Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) in series two of The Diplomat, Netflix’s smart thriller series based inside the world of diplomacy, geopolitics and a colourful marriage.
This season, Allison Janney joins the cast as an intriguing new character, much to the delight of the show’s creator and stars. For the show’s creator Debora Cahn - who previously worked with Janney on The West Wing, having the Oscar winner join The Diplomat 2 as Vice President Grace Penn adds extra spice to the hit show.
“We talked about the idea months and months before, and I couldn't imagine that it would work out,” says Cahn, one of the most successful storytellers on US TV, with other credits including Homeland and Grey’s Anatomy. “It just seemed like too much. And then she came and was as amazing as my memory of working with her was.
“I learned to write for her the way that she's able to play so many things at the same time. She can do comedy, she can talk about policy, she can do really intense drama all in a single moment. And that was sort of the candy store that I was in when I first started my career and had the privilege of writing for her then.
“In a way, I've always been writing for her all the way through. It's material that's gone to a lot of other really fantastic performers, but I kind of imprinted on the skill set that is hers, which is pretty hard to duplicate. So it was really exciting, bringing her back in.”
Details of Janney’s character are being kept under wraps as the political drama returns for its second season with Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell at the helm. As a couple working at the highest levels of international diplomacy, their skills are tested to their limit when US ambassador Kate Wyler (Russell) is drafted into London following a deadly attack.
When researching the role, Russell looked at the lives of many women in power - including Irish-American government official Samantha Power.
“I think it's an amalgamation of many women, but a lot of the people we read about were Samantha Power, Hillary Clinton and her relationship with Bill Clinton, endless accounts of Chiefs of Staff negotiating in other countries, from so many other ambassadors’ stories,” says Russell. “It's really a love letter to and an amalgamation of many women in the Foreign Service and in the State Department.”
A large element of the first season’s draw lay in the turbulent, messy marriage between Wyler and her husband, fellow political hotshot Hal (Sewell). Imminent danger early in series two reminds both of them how much they rely on each other - but this is anything but a straightforward relationship, says Russell. If anything, her character’s ascent into a new role creates even more friction.
“I think it's such a fun relationship to read for us every time,” she says. “I love the diplomacy of it, too, and learning about the inner workings of diplomacy, but the relationship is a delight. It is funny, it's awful. They are stupid. They're ridiculous and exciting and intelligent. It's all the things that I would want it to be, and they're a mess, a hot mess.”
“All of the things that could be in other writing, expositional - the stuff that really gets them going when they're arguing about politics - has become so entwined with their foreplay, their love language and the sex of it all,” adds Sewell. “There are no types of scenes that aren't fun to play. It's never: ‘Now we're doing story’ or ‘now we're doing politics’. It's all so naturally, organically intertwined with these two.”
For Russell, returning to the role that won her an Emmy nomination brings a shorthand to her complex character - and getting to do so over the format of episodic TV is a plus.
“For me it’s such a sweet spot to work in. I am sort of a nervous person in general, so it takes a while to have the freedom of showing up on set and being able to do what you want to do. So doing television where you're coming back to the same actors and the same crew, there's a shorthand.
“You don't have to keep climbing that hill every single day and trying to forget everyone's there. There's this built in safety and comfortability, and so you can really start taking off. For me, this kind of work is ideal, and I really enjoy this version of television that we're in right now. You get to explore the character in a more teased out way than two hours of a movie. It's very pleasurable, and the stories you get to tell are more fun.”
It’s a particular pleasure, Russell says, to perform Cahn and her team’s whip-smart dialogue - though it’s crucial to be on top of the detailed political language involved. “It harkens back to a different time, and it's snappy and it's acerbic and it's really fun. It's difficult at times. We struggle all the time, but it is a complete delight to get to perform,” she says.
“For me, the most challenging stuff is the heavy jargon dialogue. Once we're moving at such a quick speed, that stuff you can't just fake. You can't show up and think that you can pull that off. It's really muscular dialogue to learn, full of a world that we are not. So I think that learning the dialogue is the most difficult part, and it's the trick too. The heavy dialog and all the little specificity of the locations, it makes these people, it lands them in this world, and you need to be able to do it. That's the trick of the show."
- The Diplomat 2 is now on Netflix
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