With True Lies set to premiere on CBS March 1, it is one of a handful of new shows with a spy holding down center stage. Whether it’s the war in Ukraine, people’s heightened mistrust in government, or a desire for superheroes that look more like us than the latest Marvel colossus, it appears that viewer demand for spy-related programming is on the rise.
Matt Nix, showrunner and executive producer on True Lies, is well versed in spy-themed series, having created USA Network’s Burn Notice, with Jeffrey Donovan as an agent cut off by the government who uses his special ops skills to help those in need. Nix said the spies on True Lies — including veteran snoop Harry Tasker and his wife Helen, a more recently hatched spy — are about alter egos and secret identities, which he anticipates will play well among American viewers here in 2023.
“Everybody has a fantasy — what if I had a secret life?” he told B+C. “What if I wasn’t what I appear to be, and actually am some sort of action hero–someone who went on grand adventures? It’s an engaging fantasy for people.”
Secret Agents Abound
Besides True Lies, which has Steve Howey and Ginger Gonzaga as the Tasker couple, A Spy Among Friends, about two British spies and lifelong friends, one of them a Soviet double agent, premieres on MGM Plus March 12. Rabbit Hole, with Kiefer Sutherland as John Weir, a master of corporate espionage, debuts March 26.
On February 19, ABC premiered The Company You Keep, with Catherine Haena Kim as undercover CIA agent Emma, who falls for con man Charlie, played by Milo Ventimiglia.
To be sure, spy shows and films are hardly new. Alexander Cary, executive producer of A Spy Among Friends, cites 1965 film The Spy Who Came in From the Cold as an early entry in the category. Among others, there’s Chevy Chase-Dan Aykroyd comedy film Spies Like Us from 1985, Russian mole drama The Americans on FX and Patriot, about an offbeat intelligence officer bumbling through Europe, that ran on Prime Video 2015-2018.
“The themes of betrayal and information-is-power and the effects of secrets are a constant in filmed drama,” Cary said.
But it’s hard to recall so many spy-themed dramas coming out around the same time. Cary, who previously worked on Homeland, noted Russia invading Ukraine a year ago as playing a part in sparking interest in spy stuff. “The resurgence of the tentacles of the Soviet Union brings espionage into sharp relief,” he said.
Selling Secrets to Soviets
Based on a true story, A Spy Among Friends has Damian Lewis as Nicholas Elliott, a spy and close friend of Kim Philby, played by Guy Pearce, another spy who delivers British Cold War secrets to the Soviet Union. Philby’s story is well known in the U.K., Cary said. His friendship with Elliott is more of a mystery.
“The entire friendship was a betrayal,” he said. “The larger question is, was it a lie?”
Rabbit Hole press materials call John Weir “a master of corporate espionage.” Added executive producer Glenn Ficarra, “he’s a guy who lies for a living.”
While Rabbit Hole is set in the modern day, Ficarra and executive producer John Requa, both of whom previously worked on Patriot, came up with the idea due to the lack of espionage movies that they said had a heyday in the ‘70s, including Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View.
“Since those movies were so much about trying to convince the audience and get the audience to trust you, Kiefer was the perfect guy for this,” Requa said. “America completely trusts him.”
Ficarra said spy stuff may be enjoying a rebirth because, in this era of conspiracy theories and fake news, viewers want a character they trust to sort out the truth from the lies. “The world of manipulation and disinformation and not trusting institutions, a big theme in the ‘70s, just seems to be more relevant today,” Ficarra said.
Sarah Wayne Callies, who plays Charlie’s big sister Birdie on The Company You Keep, echoes that thought. She mentioned “a cynical age” among viewers, where many in our divided country wonder if their government has their best interests at heart. This mistrust, she said, may just make people yearn for spy-related programming. “You might want to have faith in the people in charge, but a lot of us are second-guessing if the faith is merited,” she told B+C. “Spies look behind the curtain.”
A theme of the show, Callies added, is if “the spies are any better than the criminals.”
At a press event, Ventimiglia said Charlie and Emma are on a collision course. “Professionally, they are two sides of a coin that have compartmentalized lives; her the CIA officer who, for national security, really can't discuss that job, and he, the criminal, for personal security, doesn't want to land in jail,” he said. “So when you have that, but yet you have this undeniable connection and love and foundation of who they truly are and who they truly deserve to be with, there’s the complication where the honesty, which takes a while to get to, hopefully is something that will put them closer together.”
Selling Secrets to Soviets
Nix was a fan of the True Lies movie, directed by James Cameron, in college. The movie, from 1994, had Arnold Schwarzenegger as the spy who doubles as a husband and father, and Jamie Lee Curtis as his bored wife. Nix called it a “giant, spectacular movie” that was “inescapable at the time.”
Nix, who sees True Lies as both a spy story and a family story, mentioned the lack of action-comedies in television and aims to deliver something that he described as “unapologetically fun” at a time when much of what’s on TV is dark and dour, be it news or scripted fare. At a CBS press event, Nix referred to True Lies as “dessert TV.”
“I wanted to do something big and fun and escapist, something with adventure that is funny and heartfelt — all the things the movie was,” he said. “I hope there’s a place for that at a time when people feel very weighted down by problems and issues.”
Howey, who played bartender Kevin in Shameless, has Schwarzenegger’s rather large shoes to fill. “There’s no poor man’s Arnold — he’s pretty singular,” said Nix. “We had to cast somebody physical, somebody big, with dashing looks. And Steve is really funny.”
A former CIA officer consults on the show, ensuring that True Lies gets the spy stuff mostly correct. But Nix said there’s some creative liberty on the program. “True Lies is not a documentary,” he said.
Nix noted how True Lies exists in an “apolitical world,” where the spies are clearly the good guys, taking on the heels and hopefully coming out on top. “The themes are not fraught with debate and politicization and polarization,” he said. “We’re all on the same side.” ■
