Many jobs, one performance: why Keri Russell deserves an Emmy for ‘The Americans’
In the first seconds of The Americans‘ episode one, actress Keri Russell is front and center, but she’s nothing like her usual image. Sporting a Marilyn Monroe-style blond wig, her character Elizabeth Jennings flirts with an American intelligence officer. At first glance, his behavior may seem absurd, even unconscious – at least until a moment later, when, having seduced this officer and provided the necessary information to his Soviet superiors, he takes off his wig in his car and stops the action to reveal a cutthroat KGB agent.
If you consider Americans’ The main premise – a married couple Elizabeth and Philip Jennings (Russell and his partner Matthew Rhys) live a double life in the suburbs of Washington, DC as Soviet spies in the 1980s – it is not surprising that this kind of change of identity from unknown agent to Soviet agent happened repeatedly during the six seasons of the show. However, the switch between the “real” and the hidden Elizabeth never gets old, and in large part is due to Russell’s incredibly magnetic performance.
Watch Russell in a scene like that series opener, and you’ll see the knowing behind his eyes that ever-so-subtly gives away the fact that he’s not flirting, taking off his wig, and playing spy: Instead, he’s bringing together two different people (and jobs, and personalities) at once. It is this ability to convey different people at the same time that makes Russell’s performance more than 75 episodes of The Americans truly spectacular.
These acting chops certainly won Russell fame, but his acting did The Americans from 2013 to 2018 it was under crime. With more than three Emmy nominations for outstanding actress in a drama series, Russell lost every time (losing to Tatiana Maslany in Orphan Black in the middle 2016Elizabeth Moss for The Handmaid’s Tale in the middle 2017, and Claire Foy The crown in the middle 2018), although Rhys won the actor category for the final season of the show. (Considering that Russell’s relationship with Rhys turned into a true romancemaybe you could argue it’s a shared win.) But anyway, until season 4 got there The Americans he began to build. Earlier installments of the show were available neglected (some would say overlooked) for the big rewards, even though this is where Russell lays the essential groundwork for the twists and turns of his character’s narrative arc.
We can guess why the Emmys voters didn’t give him that credit, but one good explanation is that both the series and Russell’s acting didn’t fit well in the same box. Regarding the type, The Americans is more than just a Cold War spy thriller: A domestic drama, as the Jennings balance everyday urban family life with two children against their Soviet espionage mission. Elements of workplace drama, political fiction, and crime procedurals also sneak in.
Likewise, Russell is tasked with many roles: A hard-nosed Soviet spy, of course, but also an all-American mother who scolds her children for swearing, a Communist mastermind who devises ways to drive her US-born children away from accepting American culture altogether, a businesswoman who runs a travel company to cover her many Soviet jobs promising her fake jobs. intel, from a home care nurse to a multilevel-marketing-scheme saleswoman. The impressive part isn’t just that Russell can switch between these roles. Rather, it is that it unites them all under one character: No matter what kind of person she is, there is always a trace of Elizabeth’s other “self”. Even when she plays a caring mother, her violent KGB tone is evident with the slightest glance or movement. This blink is usually very subtle: It has to be, so that Elizabeth doesn’t reveal her double life. Yet it is these subtle signs that make for edge-of-your-seat viewing, as they provide constant reminders of the difficulty of keeping all these walls up; Elizabeth is a compassionate person with bad timing or a blink of an eye to give in to a mistake.
Speaking of subtlety, maybe that’s another reason why Russell didn’t get the Emmy he deserved The Americans. His acting is very different (even his clothes once many, many wigs there’s a lot of brash, which is also part of the fun). Her emotions run high, from revenge against the Soviet defector who attacked her as an intern, to horror at the idea that the Soviets want to drag her unsuspecting children into the same line of work, to joy as she plays the young mother of a perky McMansion. Yet these attitudes are always well expressed. In Russell’s capable hands, Elizabeth is not a character who needs to scream or open her limbs to reveal her inner self, where small changes in tone or body will do.
But actually, you don’t come The Americans with that kind of shiny show. Beyond the acting, this isn’t a show that thrives on extended fight scenes or intense bombshell countdowns. It stays close to the truth, with a gradual immersion in Elizabeth and Philip’s efforts to maintain their false background. As much as it’s a show about the USA and the USSR, it’s equally about the value of each man’s slyly combining all those identities, and Russell conveys this better than anyone.
All seasons of The Americans now they broadcast to SBS Wanted.
