Yahoo Lifestyle Michael Fassbender Explains the ‘Blurry’ Line Spies Cross When It Comes to Love in The Agency — Watch
There’s a question at play in nearly every spy drama, and it’s a tough one: Can a covert operative be in a truly loving relationship when that romance is built on a state-sanctioned lie?
TVLine put forth the idea during a recent conversation with Michael Fassbender, who plays a CIA agent known only as Martian in Paramount+ with Showtime’s The Agency. The cast includes Richard Gere (Pretty Woman), Jeffrey Wright (Westworld), Jodie Turner-Smith (Bad Monkey) and Katherine Waterston (Perry Mason); George Clooney, Grant Heslov (Argo) and David Glasser (Yellowstone) are among the executive producers.
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The series is inspired by France’s The Bureau and is set at the CIA’s London Station, aka the office where Martian returns after an extended assignment in Ethiopia. During his time abroad, Martian fell in love with a local woman named Samia (played by Turner-Smith); as the premiere opens, we watch him try to settle back into a life in England that doesn’t include her. (Spoiler alert: Things don’t go smoothly.)
Call it sociopathy, call it compartmentalization, but “I think he’s battling with the feelings that he has for Samia, and also his daughter that he’s been estranged from pretty much for the past six years,” Fassbender says in the video above. It’s important to keep in mind, the actor points out, that Martian ahs been doing this job for quite some time. “What has the journey and the road done to him, and how has his moral compass been shifted over those 20 years, and what he’s had to do?” he wonders.
What’s more, being a successful spy means fully inhabiting a false persona. “Even when he’s undercover, that’s real to him,” Fassbender says. “Lies and truth have become so merged that it’s blurry. You can’t tell the difference with him… ’cause everything is a lie and the truth.”
Though Martian’s reality may shift from situation to situation, though, “that feeling of love, whatever that is for him, he’s wiling to sacrifice everything else for that,” Fassbender adds.
The Agency begins streaming on Friday with two episodes on Paramount+ for those with the Paramount+ with Showtime plan, followed by the linear network premiere Sunday at 9/8c. Press PLAY on the video above to hear more from Fassbender, then hit the comments: Are you planning to watch?
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