Editor’s note: This interview contains spoilers for The Diplomat Season 2.After a truly shocking Season 1 cliffhanger, The Diplomat is finally back! The political thriller (that also includes its fair share of drama and comedy as well) sees rough-around-the-edges ambassador Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) assigned to the UK in the midst of a global crisis — while she’s also being vetted for a potential vice presidency and attempting to navigate her fraught relationship with her husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell). Its first season ended explosively in the most literal sense, and its second outing cranks the tension up even higher as Kate must work to untangle a scandal involving some of the world’s most powerful people and Hal must deal with the physical, mental, and emotional repercussions of the attack he suffered.

Though many shows go through a sophomore slump, The Diplomat avoids it with ease, delivering an even more compelling batch of episodes this time around. Russell continues to shine, making it clear why she was nominated for an Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG, and Critics’ Choice Award, and she and Sewell are electric together as their already complicated dynamic gets even more difficult to define and manage. Throw in a new character that shakes things up — played by the legendary Allison Janney, no less — and you have a recipe for some of the most intriguing television of the year.

Collider got the chance to speak with Russell and Sewell about working with one another, what it was like to act alongside Janney and Celia Imrie, their reactions to reading that shocking Season 2 finale twist, and more.

Keri Russell on Her ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ Moment with Allison Janney in ‘The Diplomat’ Season 2

First of all, congratulations on the show — it’s legit one of my favorite things on TV right now.

KERRI RUSSELL: [Pumps fist] Yes!

RUFUS SEWELL: Thank you.

I love that it’s so full of complex women and their even more complex dynamics with each other. One of my favorite moments this season was definitely watching Grace analyze Kate and this almost The Devil Wears Prada -feeling scene. Can you talk about what it was like to shoot that?

RUSSELL: Amazing. I mean, her just dressing me down going, “Yeah, I get it. I mean, I guess you think that’s, like, cool and scrappy where you come from, but also, you’re representing millions of people, so maybe you should try a little harder.” I also love her going, “I think the bedhead look you’re going for is maybe a message better left unsent.”

SEWELL: [Laughs]

RUSSELL: [Laughs] It’s so, so good, but that’s Debora Cahn!

SEWELL: It’s so great.

RUSSELL: I mean, her writing is just [does chef’s kiss gesture]. I would love to take credit for any of it, but it’s that fun to read.

SEWELL: Just do.

RUSSELL: Maybe I will start taking credit for it.

SEWELL: Yeah, just take credit for it.

RUSSELL: All those little fun things — that’s Debora just laughing her head off writing her little scripts. And our entire writers’ room. I shouldn’t just say it’s just Debora because we have an amazing writers’ room. But it’s such a fun show to be a part of, and I’m so grateful, at this point in my life, to be a woman and not starting to play someone’s grandma or something, which I could in certain shows. It’s a delight to get to play someone smart and sexy in her own way and a mess, and it’s really fun.

SEWELL: You’re playing someone who hasn’t even had kids!

RUSSELL: I know! How fun is that?

Rufus Sewell Reveals How Hal’s Injury Changes Things in ‘The Diplomat’ Season 2
Image via Netflix

Your guys’ dynamic is so juicy to watch, especially this season because we have Hal still recovering, both physically and emotionally, which gives it this very interesting and often beautiful texture, honestly. Rufus, I’m curious what it was like to infuse Hal with this extra layer of vulnerability this season.

SEWELL: Well, actually, as far as I’m concerned, he’s always had the vulnerability — it’s just the level to which an amount comes to the forefront. It’s definitely one of the things that operates upon him — this feeling of being independent but needing this, “I don’t care but I care” thing. That’s something that, for my own purposes, is very much there through Season 1, but now it’s manifest in a way that you can’t sidestep. That’s very interesting for both of them, and it has a positive and negative effect. It brings them back together, and it makes other specters go into the shadows, but it doesn’t banish them. They haven’t been exorcized — all of those things are still there and will creep back. But for a brief period, for many reasons, they are really back in together — one of which is the fact that she’s been confronted with his possible loss.

He now has a physical vulnerability, which is a bit of a predictor of where they will go if they stay together of him being older than her and becoming infirm, and that’s kind of disturbing for him in ways that he doesn’t like. He doesn’t like the fact that it disturbs him, you know what I mean? You can have feelings that make you ashamed, and your having them and battling them doesn’t mean you’re a particular type of guy, but they’re still there. And they have to be together because they can’t trust other people, and he can do things in their situation — hold onto secrets that she can’t hold onto — so they need each other. But all the problems are still there in the background, and it’s a very exciting fertile ground for us, isn’t it?

RUSSELL: It is.

SEWELL: And we can still bicker.

RUSSELL: Yeah, always.

SEWELL: We can always bicker.

Obviously, the show takes place in a very sort of professional, buttoned-up world which I feel like makes the moments where the characters do get to snap all the more satisfying.

SEWELL: Absolutely.

Keri Russell Loves Kate’s Physicality in ‘The Diplomat’ Season 2
Image via Netflix

I really want to talk about the smashing the teapot moment because I really, really loved that. Can you talk about sort of shooting that and letting her let loose in that way?

RUSSELL: Well, I think that’s what’s fun about this character that Debora has come up with, that’s based sort of loosely on an amalgamation of different people in the world, is she’s really taking this person who is real, who is authentic and is not as polished. And because she’s not of the higher end of the political world, she’s used to kind of speaking her mind more. And I think it’s just so much more fun — she is impulsive, and she is bossy, and she lets her feelings be known. And so doing that scene with Celia Imrie, who we love so much.

SEWELL: Love Celia.

RUSSELL: She had so much of the heavy lifting to do that.

SEWELL: She’s a gangster.

RUSSELL: [Laughs] She’s amazing. She’s amazing. All that stuff is just fun and good, and I love doing the physical stuff within the Kate stuff is so fun. I can’t separate the physical stuff. To me, the physical stuff is Kate — the walk and the crazy and the hair and the sweating and the breaking things.

SEWELL: The beating people up in bushes.

RUSSELL: It’s just part of it. It’s really a delight to do.

It’s a delight to watch as well!

Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell React to That Shocking ‘The Diplomat’ Season 2 Cliffhanger
Image via Netflix

I want to really briefly touch on that cliffhanger because the show is just so masterful at those.

RUSSELL: Masterful.

I’m like gasping, jaw dropped at the TV. Can you talk a little bit about how you reacted when you read that and also what you think your characters are fearing most at the end of this season?

SEWELL: It’s a very shocking, jaw-dropping moment to see, and one of the things that they did in the read-throughs… because it’s not like we got all the scripts at the same time they’re writing them. When we’re filming one and two, they’re working on the later ones. There’s a couple of big moments that happened in this season, but the final one, we’d [points between himself and Russell] read shortly before the read-through. But the scripts that everyone else got were redacted much like the titles — the black thing over the writing — to stop the secrets getting out but also for dramatic effect. You got to see the effect on an audience in real time as you opened that page, and you could tell who’d read a couple of lines ahead. Because you’d hear [makes gasping noises]. And Ato [Essandoh] is always the most explosive — the most fun to listen to. He, like, “No!” and shoots up in the air. And that just makes it really, really exciting. You just want to see other people react when you read it. God, I can’t wait. And in terms of scared of what happens afterward…what are you…?

RUSSELL: What am I afraid of?

SEWELL: So much.

RUSSELL: I mean, I think I’ve just had this massive fight with Grace Penn, and we know what she’s done, and I think you’re just like…

SEWELL: And we’ve decided to make an enemy of her.

RUSSELL: Yeah! So what is she going to do to us basically? I mean, it’s all up for grabs. I mean, the mess is so good.

SEWELL: The more that goes wrong, the merrier. It’s like the opposite of what you want in life is what you want in a situation.

RUSSELL: The mess is so good.

SEWELL: What can go wrong? What can we lose?

RUSSELL: What I’m concerned most about is that I have to fucking wear that suit and my hair all fancy.

SEWELL: Yeah, it’s fancy time for you.

RUSSELL: Because you know we’re going to have to pick up, you know what I mean? I want to shake that hair out. [Laughs]

That’s so real, honestly.

SEWELL: You’ll find your moments.

RUSSELL: I better.

The Diplomat Season 2 is now on Netflix.

Release Date April 20, 2023 Creator

Watch on Netflix