‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith’: ‘Anora’ Breakout Mark Eydelshteyn To Star In Season 2 Of Amazon Series

Nellie Andreeva
·3-min read

Following his acclaimed American feature debut in Anora, Mark Eydelshteyn is set to make an equally high-profile American TV debut as the male lead in Season 2 of Prime Video’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Eydelshteyn will play the eponymous Mr. Smith. As Deadline reported exclusively, Billie Eilish had been rumored for the female lead, Mrs. Smith, but I hear that didn’t materialize as the Oscar-winning musician is touring.

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Amazon MGM Studios, which co-produces the series with New Regency, had been seeking an actor and actress in their 20s to play John and Jane, respectively, in Season 2 with one-year deals.

Created by Donald Glover and Francesca Sloane, Season 1 of Mr. and Mrs. Smith followed two lonely strangers (Glover, Maya Erskine) who have to pose as a married couple as they both begin new careers as spies, taking on new aliases, Mr. and Mrs. John and Jane Smith. Now hitched, John and Jane navigate a high-risk mission every week while also facing a new relationship milestone. Their complex cover story becomes even more complicated when they catch real feelings for each other. What’s riskier: espionage or marriage?

The Season 1 finale, which Sloane described to Deadline as a “nod to a’ 70s cinema cliffhanger,” involved John and Jane getting into a gunfight, leaving it unclear whether the two survive.

When asked in a Deadline interview whether Mr. & Mrs. Smith may be taking the anthology series route with a different story and different characters each season in the vein of Fargo, which Sloane had worked on, she responded, succinctly, “maybe.”

That has been a rumored formula for Amazon’s take on the New Regency-produced 2005 movie starring Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, with one-year commitments for the leads each season.

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The new Jane and John are believed to be different characters, not replacements for the ones played by Glover and Erskine in Season 1. That means that Glover and Erskine could conceivably reprise their roles in some shape or form, whether their characters are dead or alive. (The setup of Mr. & Mrs. Smith makes things confusing with multiple Janes and Johns featured on the espionage-driven show.)

Sloane returns as executive producer and showrunner for Season 2; Glover is back as executive producer. Mr. & Mrs. Smith is produced by New Regency and Amazon MGM Studios.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith premiered in February and became a Top 5 new series debut for Prime Video in the United States at that time. Entered as a drama series at the 2024 Emmys, it landed 16 nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series and Lead Actor/Actress In a Drama Series for Glover and Erskine, winning two trophies, including Guest Actress In A Drama Series for Michaela Coel. The choice suggests some continuity between seasons in the vein of The White Lotus.

Russian-born Eydelstheyn first garnered international attention as the title character in the Russian coming-of-age movie Strana Sasha (The Land of Sasha), a Berlinale 2022 Selection. He also starred in the 2022 Russian TV series Monastery before landing the role of Ivan ‘Vanya’ Zakharov in Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner Anora, which has brought international acclaim to the young actor, dubbed the “Russian Timothée Chalamet.” Eydelshteyn is repped by Color Creative, Myman Greenspan Fox and Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis.

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