Keri Russell
Appearances
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
I had no idea what I was getting into. I did not grow up wanting to be an actor at all. And I did show up with hundreds of kids and all my little dance pals. And yeah, you wait in line for, I'm not kidding, hours at some stupid Denver convention center. And you get in finally and he says, hey, what do you have prepared? Can you read this little script about a mermaid trying to recycle?
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
or something like that. And sure, yeah, I'll read the words. And then do a little dance, because that's what I had prepared, like one of my solos. And then he was like, okay, well, what song do you want to sing? And I was like, oh, no, I don't sing. And he said, little girl, do you see the line of kids waiting out there? Do you want to sing a song? And I said, I don't. I don't sing.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
And so they called me back amazingly anyway. And they had me sing some little song. I think they had me sing Happy Birthday. They want to make sure you can carry a tune, which I probably barely could, I'm sure.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
Listen, I had the best of all worlds experience. Normally, when a kid is acting, there's one child surrounded by adults and not to mention the crew, which is huge. A crew to make an hour show, I mean, it's hundreds of people. So it's this kid, you know, working really long hours and needing to be professional and are surrounded by these adults.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
The Mickey Mouse Club, you know, I was one of 19 kids. The adults were invisible to me. I didn't even notice them. You know, it was just being in a small high school. I was just worried about like, you know, who I was going to make out with probably, you know, who I had a crush on. So it was a sweet kind of innocent experience.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
version of acting that being said I just think putting any child in a professional setting like that is really tricky and that and that's why so many people don't make it and have you know have complicated lives after and as much as we did have fun and we totally did Little kids, you're supposed to be able to mess up. You're supposed to have a sick day or three.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
I don't regret anything and I'm so grateful for my life, but I would never let my kids do it because kids are supposed to be kids if they can. And if you want to do it, you can do it later.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
Oh, my God. I haven't heard that in a million years. That is hilarious. Oh, my gosh.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
Deborah Kahn, who wrote it, sent me the script. It came through the normal channels. It was actually, it was the holidays. It was Christmas time. And it just so happened that I had three sets of grandparents downstairs in my house. I was cooking for them all. It was chaotic and fun and amazing. And, you know, I was clearly not shopping around for a new television show to join.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
Bad sign. But then I remember at the end of the pilot, they're standing on a rooftop and they're kind of like, oh, well, you know, this was our first few months. And, you know, we're going to agree that to put the past behind us. And she's maybe going to go back because it was crazy for her to come to New York.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
And he says, yeah, I just I just I can't wait to see what the city looks like when it snows. And it's just like, it's such like a romantic way of looking at the world and that time in your life when everything is new and in front of you.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
It's so sweet. It's such a sweet little something.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
So Felicity was four years and it was this big chunk of my 20s, you know, so grateful for it. Saved a lot of money because, you know, we were working really long hours on network shows. You have about two months a year that you're not on that show because you're doing about 22 to 24 episodes. And so, you know, what, like 16-hour days, 17, 18-hour days sometimes.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
And I just felt like I had missed part of being a kid a little bit. So I took that money I'd saved and I rented an apartment in New York to be close to my girlfriends, Alana and Lindsay. And I acted like a kid. I didn't want to act. I wanted to show up to birthday parties that I wasn't able ever to... Because when you're shooting...
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
A show you're working till 1030 at night and then you wake up at five and you're on set the next day. So I missed out on like, you know, stupid things, birthday parties and going out dancing and getting drunk and walking home drunk in the snow. And I got to do all of those things those few years in New York. And.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
Just wander around listening to overly emotional teenage music or reading books all day. That step back is the only way I'm still in this business because I think I had to know I wanted to do it again before it consumed me.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
I read this and I just – it has this combination of – or Deborah's writing does I suppose – of this political fun intrigue and almost in the world of kind of war journalism and those kind of stories that interest me. And this world of civil servants and the State Department and the people who do those jobs that we just don't know that much about. And Deborah, she writes about the minutia of life.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
So it's someone going to meet the president, but then realizing there's yogurt on my pants. And you're like, I gotta get this yogurt. Like, how am I gonna get this off? And it's just great writing. And I couldn't say no.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
That's very funny. She's a very good organizer, and she's very good at getting all the facts right and getting people where they need to be behind the scenes. And then I think if you ask her to wear something other than her one black suit that she really feels good in and smart in and tough in, and you ask her to wear a dress, it's...
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
going to show her sweat and she's itchy and she doesn't like when people look at her. So that's really fun.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
That's what this show is sort of about, you know, plucking her from the background as like number two and bringing her to the front in a very visible post, which London would be for an ambassador.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
Going to an award show is such a fun idea. Yeah. Going is zero fun. It's so fun to think about wearing a fancy dress. It is so fun. Everything is so pretty. Oh my gosh, and the colors and getting your hair and makeup done and imagining that you'll look so much better than you really do when you do school drop-off. But the truth and the reality of getting your hair and makeup done.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
you still look sort of weird. You're instantly starting to sweat, putting on a dress, going, oh, this doesn't look the way I thought it would. Oh, wow, standing in front of hundreds of photographers while they take your picture and you're like, oh, my God, I'm doing the wrong face. I'm not standing right. Oh, they're going to see my sweat. Can they see through this dress? Can they see my nipples?
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
Like, you know, it's all... That is never fun. Like... All you want to do is do like five minutes of one of those things and then go leave and get a burger and have a beer. But that's not what you get to do. It's like an eight-hour ordeal. So, yes, I fully – when I read that, I was like, oh, yeah, I know what that is. I mean just – you're just in a tailspin of uncomfort.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
You know, it's funny, John Landgraf, who runs FX, really advocated for me to do this part. And I kept, I read it and I was like, why in the world would they want me to play this cold, calculating spy, Russian spy? Because literally when I was reading it,
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
I was thinking of like, you know, in Rocky, like when he has to fight the Russian fighter and he has that amazing Russian wife, I think it's Bridget Nielsen or something, right?
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
That's who I was picturing. I am frazzled and nervous and like girl next door. So I was like, what? Why does he want me? But that was sort of the genius of him is realizing that you need somebody who does look sort of ordinary and that people have this sort of whatever feeling for so that I could be this crazy killer and, you know, sneaky spy.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
It's, you know, Joe and Joel, the writers of the show, they at one point had spoken to like a psychologist about children and how this might affect them. And one of the things I thought was so interesting was they were saying one of the things that
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
traumatizes a child more than anything is a huge lie because they can't even trust their own memories because they go back and they're like, but none of that was real because you weren't doing that. So I have all these memories that you were working in a travel agency or whatever we were doing. And that's not even real anymore and how damaging that is.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
No, I know. It's such a great idea for a show because you have these people, these children looking up to you and they're judging you. And it's such an interesting, it's not just one spy telling the story in a movie. You're you're living with them and you're living with their choices and feeling all these other little satellite parts of their lives.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
And that's what's so fun about this era of TV that who knows, maybe we're moving out of now.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
It was so fun. I mean, it's an actor's dream. First of all, there's this incredible cheat. And I feel like since The Americans, now there's a lot of things I feel like these days where people get all wigged up and do things.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
So many wigs. And stupid mustaches and things. But, you know, it's this incredible shorthand cheat to feeling like someone else, getting to wear that wig or crazy makeup. You know, I did this job with Gary Oldman and Gary said, you know, I've been watching it and I call David Bowie and we FaceTime afterwards and we talk about the show. I was like, oh my.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
It's so cool. Totally. So anyway, he said, you know, that one episode where you're wearing this one wig, I think it was this... It was early on. I'm wearing some super short, crazy wig and they kind of gave me weird skin and... And he said, you know, people don't understand that when you do that, it helps you so much. Like you look like a completely different person. I said, I know, it's true.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
And it was really, it's such a fun cheat to seeing yourself as this other person.
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
It's kind of like the American show. Yeah. It was so stupid and so fun. We'd be like –
Fresh Air
Kerri Russell On 'The Diplomat'/ Remembering Dorothy Allison
Yes, that makes sense. Yeah, I think so.