John Smith

And I talked to her a lot about the story that we were going to tell in the very first season and While we were still writing that story, we were about five scripts in and we had spoken to a woman named Heather Conley, who's a Russia expert. She's really fantastic, brilliant woman.

And the way that she talked about dealing with Russia was so fascinating because we've gone through this period of time of like, you know, like 20 years of passive aggressive Russia where... most of their foreign policy was conducted through covert operations that they pretended weren't happening.

And the way that she talked about dealing with Russia was so fascinating because we've gone through this period of time of like, you know, like 20 years of passive aggressive Russia where... most of their foreign policy was conducted through covert operations that they pretended weren't happening.

And the way that she talked about dealing with Russia was so fascinating because we've gone through this period of time of like, you know, like 20 years of passive aggressive Russia where... most of their foreign policy was conducted through covert operations that they pretended weren't happening.

So I was so taken with the idea of how do you fight an enemy who pretends they're not fighting with you? And so I wrote this like five episodes of how do you deal with passive aggressive Russia? And Dafna called me on the phone one day and said, I have bad news for both you and millions of innocent civilians. Vladimir Putin is about to invade Ukraine. I thought.

So I was so taken with the idea of how do you fight an enemy who pretends they're not fighting with you? And so I wrote this like five episodes of how do you deal with passive aggressive Russia? And Dafna called me on the phone one day and said, I have bad news for both you and millions of innocent civilians. Vladimir Putin is about to invade Ukraine. I thought.

So I was so taken with the idea of how do you fight an enemy who pretends they're not fighting with you? And so I wrote this like five episodes of how do you deal with passive aggressive Russia? And Dafna called me on the phone one day and said, I have bad news for both you and millions of innocent civilians. Vladimir Putin is about to invade Ukraine. I thought.

So we had to throw out a whole lot of story.

So we had to throw out a whole lot of story.

So we had to throw out a whole lot of story.

That was going to be season one.

That was going to be season one.

That was going to be season one.

That was going to be season one. Yeah.

That was going to be season one. Yeah.

That was going to be season one. Yeah.

Yeah. All of this all about, you know, Russia had done something and was pretending they didn't. And so how would we respond?

Yeah. All of this all about, you know, Russia had done something and was pretending they didn't. And so how would we respond?

Yeah. All of this all about, you know, Russia had done something and was pretending they didn't. And so how would we respond?

Just terrific in the role. Amazing. And, you know, the idea was to give him a little bit of Trump and a little bit of Boris Johnson. Sure, yeah. And to try and figure out what you do when there is a chaotic figure as a head of state. Like, you know, how does everybody around that individual manage? So that was part of the brief. But Rory Kinnear is so good.