1 month ago
Spies are back, astatine slightest according to rising prima Agnes O’Casey, who is playing 4 supplier roles this twelvemonth and who unsurprisingly has immoderate thoughts astir nan astir celebrated spook of all.
“I was playing a crippled of ‘Would you alternatively be?’ pinch friends precocious and nan mobility was ‘Bond aliases Indiana’, and aft that mobility I conscionable became obsessed pinch nan thought of playing Bond,” O’Casey told Deadline. “I’d emotion to beryllium a female Bond and for her to shapeshift successful nan measurement he does, to person ‘Bond girls’ beryllium ‘Bond guys’. Now successful my caput it’s for illustration nan astir nosy point ever. I want to velocity astir successful an Aston Martin.”
O’Casey surely has nan chops. Her spook roles this twelvemonth see Liz Gold successful nan West End adjustment of John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came successful from nan Cold, which she will reprise successful nan BBC-MGM+’s Legacy of Spies, on pinch a return to Netflix’s Black Doves and, finally, Apple TV’s Star City.
She is astatine Canneseries this play promoting nan latter, a spinoff of For All Mankind starring Rhys Ifans and Anna Maxwell Martin astir nan Soviet Union and nan abstraction race. O’Casey plays Irina Morozova, a caller summation to nan surveillance section who is taken nether nan helping of nan caput of nan section (Maxwell Martin). An older type of her was played by Svetlana Efremova in For All Mankind.
“When I received nan breakdown of my characteristic I conscionable felt for illustration this was successful my wheelhouse,” said O’Casey, who collapsed retired playing yet different undercover domiciled successful nan BBC’s Ridley Road. “Irina is an astonishing characteristic because astatine first she felt for illustration a baddie and I needed to find a measurement to warrant her but I slow started to deliberation astir her arsenic much nuanced. She’s a food retired of h2o but is besides thrilled by that, truthful location was a batch to play with.”
Unsurprisingly fixed her existent spy penchant, O’Casey researched nan domiciled deeply, reference Svetlana Alexievich’s oral history Secondhand Time: The Last of nan Soviets, and Ben Macintyre’s The Spy and The Traitor, which she says became thing of a “bible” to nan Star City cast.
For All Mankind is expanding nan franchise aft softly becoming 1 of Apple TV’s longest-running bid of each time, and O’Casey said she has been amazed astatine nan “different spectrum of group successful my life” who count themselves immense fans.
‘Legacy of Spies’
She is now preparing to sprout Legacy of Spies pinch all-star formed including Matthew Macfadyen, Daniel Brühl and Dan Stevens.
“I recovered my feet pinch this play arsenic a theatre actress,” she said. “So I’m really excited to movie thing wherever I consciousness for illustration I person a beardown grip. I’m not scrabbling astir for who she is.”
So what is it astir being undercover that attracts O’Casey?
“There’s thing astir a double life that is appealing,” she explained. “At schoolhouse I was good behaved but secretly felt for illustration I was severely behaved. We each somewhat consciousness for illustration we are surviving a double life.”
Star City has its world premiere Sunday astatine Canneseries.
