The cast of The Diplomat describes the second season as all about pressure.
Blavity/Shadow and Act Managing Editor Trey Mangum spoke with cast members ahead of the second season to understand more about the characters and the higher stakes they’re facing.
Keri Russell, who plays U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, Kate Wyler, said that her character’s relationship with fellow political careerist Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell) is rife with tension. However, this season, the tension is “teamwork against the outside world and solving a problem” instead of the two bickering within their marriage.
“I think what’s so good about [creator/showrunner/EP] Debora Cahn’s writing…is it just feels real. The first season, all the angst, and the friction and fighting and the second season, the coming together and the worry and the protectiveness, to me it’s all just tension and energy,” she said. “For the rest of their lives, Kate and Hal, whether they’re together or apart, that energy and tension that they have will always exist.”
David Gyasi, who plays Austin Dennison, is also experiencing his own tension within himself. He might be making career moves that make sense professionally, but, as Gyasi, said, those decisions aren’t benefitting his heart and soul.
“In terms of his career and survival and his progression, absolutely he makes those decisions,” he said. “He’s grown up making those decisions and…when you look at him, this guy has had incredible loss…he’s dealt with a lot of stuff, especially when women get close to him.”
The loss Dennison’s experienced includes his wife, who died by suicide, and his sister attempting to do the same. With so much to deal with personally, as well as people who aren’t willing to make his life easier professionally, Gyasi said that sometimes he just wanted his character “to scream.”
“That’s kind of what it felt like, this kind of clamp and this squeeze,” he said of his character’s life at this point in the series.
Ali Ahn, who plays Eidra Graham, has pressure in the form of doing some things she might not really want to do as she goes along with Kate’s plans.
“I think what’s really exciting is you have these two women really having to figure it out and having to rely on each other,” she said. “I think between Season 1 and Season 2, Eidra has really come to trust Kate and understand that this is a serious diplomat. She’s not just some figurehead. And I think… because of Kate, [she’s] forced to work with people she doesn’t want to.”
Watch the full interviews with the cast, including Rufus Sewell, above.
The second season of The Diplomat finds Kate and Hal realizing that the explosion that rocked the British government came from within the government itself.
Here’s more about the second season:
A deadly explosion in the heart of London shatters US Ambassador Kate Wyler’s world (Keri Russell). Struggling to rebuild the lives that broke and the team that split apart, Kate’s worst fears unfold: The attack that brought her to the UK didn’t come from a rival nation, it came from inside the British government. As Kate chases the truth, her only real ally is her almost-ex-husband Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell), very much alive, and very much involved. She faces a fraught marriage, a complex dynamic with British Foreign Secretary Austin Dennison (David Gyasi), and a threatening visit from Vice President Grace Penn (Allison Janney).
Season 2 of The Diplomat comes to Netflix Thursday, Oct. 31. The series has also already been greenlit for Season 3.
The post ‘The Diplomat’ Season 2: What The Cast Says About The ‘Pressure Cooker’ Season And Its Tension appeared first on Blavity.
