-Our first guest tonight is an Emmy-nominated,
Golden Globe-winning actress
you know from shows like "Felicity" and "The Americans"
as well as the film "Cocaine Bear."
-Whoo! -Yeah.
she stars in "The Diplomat,"
which is streaming now on Netflix.
Let's take a look.
-You can wait by that chair, then you'll be out of eyeshot
when I open the door to receive him.
Good.
-You always have cookies?
-Is that a problem?
-For a reprimand?
-Well, it's hardly a reprimand, is it?
-Well, it should look like one.
-The tell isn't the biscuits.
It's the American ambassador lurking in the corner.
-Please welcome back to the show
our friend Keri Russell.
♪♪ [ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Welcome back. -Thank you very much.
Thanks for having me. -Congratulations on the show.
I feel like it's a show everyone's talking about.
Everyone's talking about "The Diplomat."
-Well, that's very nice.
-For years in "The Americans,"
you played someone conspiring against the U.S. government.
Is it nice to now play a person within the U.S. government?
-Well, I figured, you know, I'm going to continue
living in the United States. I better earn my keep.
-Yeah, exactly.
We were all starting to get a little suspicious
about this Keri Russell character.
-You know, you know. We'll see. We'll see.
-You obviously shot this in the U.K. and you shot
in a lot of government buildings,
a lot of places where there were a lot of protocols.
-A lot. Generally Americans and British people
have different ways of working in the world generally.
There's a lot of just more words in a sentence
there tends to be, you know. Americans are like,
"Yes, no," and British people
are just more polite about everything.
And they ask about, you know,
the weather or your husband or your pet
or whatever in this very lovely way.
And Americans are like,
"No, this is what we're doing, you know?"
But yes, we shot in these incredible --
Like, we shot at the U.S. embassy,
which was really incredible, this state-of-the-art building.
They actually let us shoot there, which is incredible.
I'm always like, It's us and the crew guys.
Like, they're going to be eating burritos.
Like, this is not -- Don't let us in here.
But they were very gracious, and these big, beautiful --
I mean, that's sort of part of the show is this thing
that Americans don't exactly have this this grandeur
and this, you know, those stately homes.
-Yeah. And I think like just an appreciation
for the way things are done a certain way.
Are you good with rules like that?
Like, do they tell you before you go to shoot in a building,
"Keri, you can't behave the way you usually do"?
[ Laughter ]
-I definitely do not invite
"My mom's gone wild," that's for sure.
-You do have a pretty strong group of moms gone wild.
-I have a strong group of moms gone wild.
-There have been multiple complaints in Brooklyn about
you and your friends. -I would not be surprised.
I seriously would not be surprised.
No, I am a rule follower.
In fact, on "Felicity," way back in the olden days...
[ Audience cheers ]
Thanks, guys. Um, Speedman and Mandy --
-This is Scott Speedman. -Scott Speedman.
-Let's give it up for my friend Scott Speedman.
-Yeah, Speedy.
-Of course. Your brother. Yes.
So we would, like, leave for lunch and do something.
And I was the kid who was always like, "Guys,
we have got to get back.
They are going to be worried and we have 10 minutes to get back.
We have must be on time."
And they used to call me the homework reminder.
-Really? -Yeah.
-And now, you're a very young person here.
And I'm assuming "Felicity" is the first time
you did a talk show.
-Yes.
-Were you -- you were nervous, right?
-I'm a nervous person. It's part of me.
-You do not give off a nervous vibe.
-Sweating uncontrollably right now.
-Gotcha. [ Laughter ]
-So back then, I was even more nervous
and I had never done anything like that.
And there was no, like, social media or any of that stuff.
-There was no preparation either for being a talk show guest.
-No. -Yeah.
-And it was lovely.
-Was it Rosie? -Yes. Yes, thank you very much.
-It was Rosie, and you know what else?
That means it was here. It was in this studio.
This is Rosie's old studio. So if you start having
flashbacks -- -I've wiped it out of my brain.
[ Laughter ]
So I was backstage
and she heard I was nervous.
And so she very -- she came back and she said,
"Hey, you know, we're going to go do this."
And I was like... [ Breathing heavily ]
And I went out and she was being so polite and so kind to me.
And you can actually see me. I'm so nervous.
And I'm smiling. She's like, "Where are you from?"
And I'm like, "Colorado," while wiping away a tear,
like tears coming down my face. And everyone said,
"Oh, don't worry, no one will notice, no one will notice."
And I went back and watched it. I'm definitely crying.
[ Laughter ] Definitely crying.
-Well, a lot of people cry when they get asked,
"Where are you from?" [ Laughter ]
-And you know what? It's like...
It's just part -- I hate it less about myself.
And I think that's what makes it easier.
I used to really beat myself up about it,
and it's not normal having to publicly speak or look --
-And it's a part of, I think, acting that people forget.
And then again, no one tells you, right?
You go, you maybe study it as a craft,
you get a show and then you forget
there's this whole promotional, ceremonial aspect of it.
-There is. And they are two very different --
Like, someone who's really good at the ceremonial part
isn't necessarily great at acting or, you know what I mean?
They don't always work together.
So yeah, which is very much our show and that's...
-Yeah, you do a lot of ceremony on "The Diplomat" as well.
You found a nice fit for yourself.
-Yes, I did.
-You found another nice fit on "The Americans" --
your partner, Matthew Rhys.
And I'm a big fan of his, you know.
[ Cheers and applause ] You know.
You know, I'm a big fan of his. -Me, too.
-And the last time he was here, we had a grand old time.
I want to make sure. Was it Saint David's Day?
-Saint David's Day. -Which is a big Welsh holiday.
-It's like the Welsh St. Patrick's Day.
-Yes, Welsh St. Patrick's Day.
And one of the things you do is there's a leek-eating contest.
You eat raw leeks.
And that's what me and -- Man, he's a...
[ Laughter ] He's usually a sexy gentleman,
but when he's chomping on a leek...
-He's going for it. -He's going for it.
You know, I got the sense that he was going to,
on St. David's Day, maybe tie one on a little bit.
Like, he had that energy when he was leaving here.
Is that your memory of it?
-We are, you know, still parents,
so we're pretty boring as it goes.
But every once in a while he does.
And I will say he did go out after that even,
after his time with you and came home very late
and in a certain state. And we actually, in the morning,
found the footage of our security,
like the the security camera of the front door and rewatched it.
-You and he together? -Uh-huh.
-And was it -- How did he do?
Do you guys have stairs?
-We were like, "Oh, oh, there you are.
You made it up the stairs.
Oh, going to find the key. This might take a while."
[ Laughter ] "Oh, he found it. Okay."
It was absolutely delightful.
-Obviously you guys got to collaborate
on "The Americans." You were both in --
First of all, congratulations on "Cocaine Bear."
I mean, for real? [ Cheers and applause ]
-Whoa! Thanks.
-It was such an exciting thing.
-How crazy? So crazy. -But it was an --
When you heard about it, you were like,
"Oh, this is going to be fun." And then it was deeply fun.
People were very excited to see it.
Matthew was in "Cocaine Bear." -He was.
-He did not last very long.
No spoiler -- That's a spoiler. -No spoilers.
-But if you go to see a lot of Matthew,
you're going to see a little. -A little.
-Yeah. -But he's going to go out
like a firecracker. -He did. Yeah.
He made his time in "Cocaine Bear" deeply worth it. Yeah.
-Stamp. Yeah.
-Now, have you stayed in touch with the bear?
Yes. Yeah. [ Laughter ]
So when you shoot scenes like this crazy movie...
-Yeah, this is a very --
I mean, this is all you need for "Cocaine Bear."
-That's the movie.
-As a still for a film goes, that's great.
-The suit. The hot pink suit and the handbag.
Okay. Yeah.
So when you shoot those, like, bear attacking scenes,
it's actually this really lovely, you know,
Kiwi, New Zealand guy, large man,
muscular, like, whatever, dressed in a skintight unitard.
-Yeah. -Crawling around looking like a bear.
-Yeah.
-So maybe not always scary. -Right.
-But strange. And then -- So it's either him, lovely Allan,
climb-- you know, doing his amazing movements
and you're kind of watching or -- Banks
Elizabeth Banks yelling. -Yeah.
-So that's like -- So I guess that's -- Yeah.
See now, that looks -- If I saw that in the woods,
that's scarier to me than a bear.
-It is scary. That is slightly scary.
But then otherwise it's Banks yelling to you like,
"Oh, my gosh!" You know, with a megaphone.
"His arm is being eaten off! His leg's throwing!
There's blood everywhere! His face is dripping with blood!"
And that's what you're reacting to.
-I do have a third photo,
which is, I think, the scariest of the options to see.
We have guy in bear suit. We have weird half a bear
and then we just have a solitary bear head.
Oh. [ Laughter ]
There it is. -This is what you're looking at.
You're like, "Oh, got it.
Scary. It's very, very scary."
-Did you have -- I mean, you're making the movie.
Did you have any sense of the cultural impact
that it was going to have? No, I genuinely mean,
like, you know, it's so hard these days for a movie
to happen where it's not based on,
you know, a Marvel film or a Star Wars film
or some sort of, you know, intellectual property.
And you guys were just like, "Cocaine bear, let's go."
-We're going to go all in for "Cocaine Bear." I love it.
The pandemic got weird. What can I say?
-Yeah. People were like, "Do we need another --
We should do another Avengers movie."
And you're like, "Or should we have a bear eat some cocaine?"
[ Laughter ]
-I guess I bet right.
-It was really great. You did bet right.
I mean, Elizabeth Banks did such a fantastic job.
-She did such a fantastic -- I'm so happy for her.
I mean, this is -- She's so awesome anyway,
but this is huge for her. This is so great.
-That's great. The new show is great.
And you as always are great.
Thanks so much for being with us.
-Thank you. -It's so great to see you.
Keri Russell, everybody.
"The Diplomat" is streaming now on Netflix.
We'll be right back with Graham Norton.