The series "The Americans": actors and roles, plot

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The series "The Americans", whose actors speak Russian a lot, was favorably received by the audience of Western fans of the spy theme. Cable channel FX has already signed a contract for the sixth and apparently final season of the project.

Creating a series

The idea to create a TV movie about Soviet counterintelligence officers came to Joe Weisberg not by chance. At one time he served in the CIA and encountered "red agents". According to him, "practically all of them were educated and intelligent people, not to be compared with the current Muslim fanatics."

After the end of the service, Joe took up writing scripts. He participated in the creation of such series as "Fight" and "Falling Skies". In The Americans, Weisberg also proved himself as an executive producer of the project.

Film fans and critics liked the series. This is primarily due to the fact that the characters are well written in the script. Watching their mental torment is interesting, as well as looking forward to intrigue - will the agents be revealed or not.

Season 1"The Americans" attracted a huge number of viewers to the screens. Then the ratings began to fall a little, but by the beginning of season 2, the project gained popularity again.

Storyline

The plot of the series "The Americans" is built on the interaction of two main characters - Phillip and Elizabeth. They are married with two wonderful children and are busy expanding their own business.

But it's all just a cover. In fact, they are agents of the Soviet Union, Mikhail and Nadezhda, who settled in the US capital several years ago. All this time they have been conducting espionage activities in favor of their country. And everything would be fine if a certain Stan did not become their neighbor. He is an FBI agent and is trying to expose the spies.

In addition to the main storyline, the series constantly contains an analysis of the feelings and emotions of the characters who really live like spouses and begin to fall in love with each other.

The series, in fact, affects the fate of many foreign residents who for many years could not speak their native language, tell children about their origin and had many other problems…

Matthew Reese

The male lead is not American by birth. Matthew Reese is from Wales.

Reese began his acting career in England on the theater stage. Then he began to be invited to small roles in television series. Feature films with his participation began to appear after 2000. These were the paintings "On Guard for Death", "Love and Other Catastrophes" and "Forbidden Love". Matthew also participated in the series "Brothers and Sisters", playing one of the main roles for 5 seasons.

Reese's hero - Phillip Jennings - was initially not very clear to the actor. To better prepare for the role, Matthew even did a week-long internship at the CIA.

The Welshman's ability to instantly transform and undoubted talent earned Reese nominations for "Personal Achievement in Drama" and "Best Actor" from the Television Critics Association in 2013.

Keri Russell

Keri Russell played Phillip's imaginary wife Elizabeth in the series "The Americans" flawlessly.

Keri is a Native American. She started her career as a dancer in the Mickey Mouse Club show.

The first appearance in the movie took place in the comedy "Honey, I enlarged the baby." This was followed by work in more serious films - "The Seventh Heaven", "We Were Soldiers", "Mission Impossible-3" and "Planet of the Apes: Revolution".

The president of the FX channel chose the actress for the role of Elizabeth. He explained to Carey that she had to act in such a way that the audience fell in love with the heroine, which at first causes some rejection. And Russell coped with this task perfectly.

In the personal life of the actress, not everything was so successful. In 2007, she married Shane Deary. The couple had two children - son River and daughter Willa. But after 5 years the marriage fell apart.

Just at this time beganFilming of The Americans. Actors Russell and Reese met at the movie theater and are still inseparable in life. In May 2016, the couple had a son, Sam, who became the first child for Reese.

Noah Emmerich

For the role of FBI officer Stan Beeman, director Daniel Sackheim invited the colorful actor Noah Emmerich.

Officially Noah has been in the movies since 1993, when The Last Action Hero was released. Other famous films with his participation are The Truman Show, Pride and Glory, Beautiful Girls.

Noah Emmerich began acting in TV shows a little later. He has worked on NYPD Blue, White Collar and The Walking Dead. For his role in the latter, he was nominated for the Saturn Award in 2011 as "The Best Guest of the Project".

Stan Beeman lives across from the Jenningses. He sees how parents are trying to solve problems with children, finances and their own. And for a long time, Stan has no idea who his charming neighbors really are…

Secondary squad

The actors of the series "The Americans", who perform not the main, but significant characters, were also selected with great care.

Thus, the mentor of the agents Claudia is played by Margot Martindale, who was awarded an Emmy for her participation in the TV series "Justice".

Children of the Jennings family are performed by young actors Holly Taylor (Page) and Keidrich Celatti (Henry). The KGB resident Nina Krylova was superbly played by Annette Mahendra. The actress is fluent in 7 languages, her father is Russian.

There are quite a lot of people from Russia in the series. These are Lev Gorn as Zotov, Kosta Ronin (Burov), Vera Chernysheva as an intelligence officer and Michael Aronov as Soviet scientist Baklanov.

In 2017, Russell and Reese were nominated for the Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress and Best Actor, respectively.

Reasons for the series' popularity

There are several reasons why watching the series can be recommended not only to fans of spy thrillers, but also to connoisseurs of quality acting.

The main ones are as follows:

1. "The Americans" is a prominent representative of the famous drama series about agents behind enemy lines. Against the backdrop of many monotonous "soap operas", the project looks more preferable, although it is devoid of massive fan love. The reason for this is the emphasis of the creators on the inner world of the characters in the absence of special effects. To watch this series, you need a certain amount of knowledge and your own thinking.
2. The series "The Americans" (season 1 especially) is distinguished by the quality of spoken Russian. Weisberg did not try to make caricatures of Soviet agents. He penetrated into their soul and sought to show the viewer the eternal struggle of man with his own passions.
3. The actors of the series "The Americans", atypical for this genre, attract the viewer with their game. The creators very accurately selected the performers asmain and secondary roles.
4. These days, projects that highlight the 80s are gaining more and more popularity. Apparently, this is due to the rethinking of the events of that time by the majority of members of society.
5. The series is relevant now more than ever. It reflects problems identical to those of today - the fear of a nuclear explosion, war between the US and Russia, and so on. Along with this, family troubles and their resolution are of interest at all times.