The Diplomat Cast Talks Women In Politics, Tricky Jargon, and Jokesters On Set
In Netflix’s The Diplomat, Keri Russell stars as Kate Wyler, a career diplomat who is thrust into a new high-profile gig as an ambassador amid an international crisis. We follow her journey juggling this new path in the spotlight and her turbulent marriage to a political star. Kristen Maldonado of Pop Culture Planet spoke to the cast and creatives at the New York premiere of The Diplomat.
Showrunner and creator Debora Cahn was inspired by an ambassador she worked with on Homeland when it came to telling Kate Wyler’s story in The Diplomat. “We were researching a story and [hearing] her talking about what she did on an average day in her 30-year long career just blew my hair off. She seemed like somebody's really very pleasant, well put together mom. It turns out she's in war zones and bombs are dropping and she's trying to get to warlords to negotiate with each other,” Cahn told me. “The kind of work that people in the Foreign Service do and the State Department… it's invisible. If they're doing it right, you never hear about it. It's stopping problems before they start and before they erupt into something that we hear about or unwinding them right at the end. Then world leaders come in and sign treaties, but that is the result of work that's been going on by people like Kate Wyler making that possible over a long period of time.”
While the cast was hooked by the script, some needed to learn more about the subject matter. “I hate reading scripts on my cell phone because I hate the technology, but this was so good that I'm standing in my kitchen just reading it on my cell phone going, ‘This is the most amazing thing I've read in a long time. If I could ever be a part of something like this, it would be amazing.’ But then as I'm reading, I'm like these people say a lot of stuff. I don't know where half of these things that they're talking about are. I didn't know these countries even existed. I had to really bone up,” Ato Essandoh said, revealing that he dove deep into the documentary The Human Factor to learn more. “It's emotional. I cried through the whole thing. I couldn't believe it. I was like, ‘Oh, that's what these people in the Foreign Service do. They are every day trying to save the world.”
The political jargon could get particularly tricky. “There's some long speeches I have to give. […] There's a lot of dense tricky language and Billie is a character who is very, very, very confident and self-assured and smart and so you can't fake it. You got to know the stuff. So that was really tricky, but a very rewarding challenging,” said Nana Mensah, with Essandoh adding: “I’ll say I look smooth in it. but I'm not that smooth. Almost every line to me was challenging. Stuart Heyford's job in the Diplomat […] it took me a long time to just be able to say that and sound like I know what I'm saying.”
While the characters are doing important things, they’re also very real. “On top of it being very impressive and having a serious vein and extremely well researched and very real and believable, it was very, very funny. The wit and the humor of the characters was intrinsic to it. It wasn't like a joke at the end of a serious scene. The people were funny,” Rufus Sewell told me. “Their way of talking to each other, their dynamic, was based on a wit. That way of dealing with situations was based on jokes and insults and that felt not just like material, but character.”
“The thing that's so exciting about this show is people who are so smart and ambitious and great at their jobs, but then messy in their personal life. That contrast is so juicy,” Ali Ahn said. “And it’s authentically diverse. It's not just like a check in the box. Everyone is so fierce. I feel really, really proud to be a part of this company.”
The political space can often seem like a white man’s game, but Cahn was dedicated to changing the game. “For me, what's been most fun is being able to create a world where you see a lot of strong women. You see their weaknesses and you see their mistakes and you see their joy. You don't just see their strength,” she shared, “and there's a bunch of them.”
Keri Russell both stars in The Diplomat and is executive producing for the first time. “I love the character. She's very much herself. She wants to look like herself. She wants to feel like herself. She wants to feel tough and secure and in control. She doesn't want to put on a dress because someone asks her to. I also think she's really funny [and] has a lot of integrity,” she said. “The script is just so special. I think it hits a lot of things that I love like political intrigue and then Debora Cahn’s brand of humor about the minutia of life is just so funny to me.”
Mensah plays White House Chief of Staff Billie Appiah, which was initially a role written for a man. “The best part about it was that, instead of just transposing me on top of this role that was originally written for a white guy, Deb was like, ‘I want to honor your Ghanaian heritage. What's a last name that I can give this character?’ So my character has a Ghanaian last name. There was [a] couple tweaks throughout the season that she made to honor the fact that I'm a lady. I appreciated that too. That was really sensitive on her part because she really didn't have to do that,” she told me. “That was a testament to the kind of set that she ran as well. […] It's rare in television that your bosses are women and I loved working with them. […] Keri is obviously a pro and the climate that she created on set was so warm and generous and funny. We had jokes and inside jokes and […] it was such a delight.”
Essandoh, who plays Kate Wyler’s right hand man Stuart Heyford, confirmed: “I've loved her since Felicity. […] She's done a lot of serious stuff. I didn't know how funny she was, like just as a person. She's funny and goofy and so when you're working on stuff like this that's really intense you need to have humor. […] That's the whole cast. We're all a bunch of clown. We can turn on the serious diplomat stuff, but then when you call cut everybody's a clown. It makes it so much easier and I think that's because of Keri.”
Lucky for fans of The Diplomat, the show has already been confirmed to be picked up for a second season. “I don't know! I've done a bunch of television shows. I've been lucky with a lot of great work. People ask me, ‘Well, if you get another season, what do you want to happen?,’ and I have all these ideas,” said Essandoh. “Working on this show with Debora Cahn, I know whatever I would come up with — I hope my character survives and I hope he gets to do this — whatever she comes up with is going to be better than mine. I'm just going to let her do it and be surprised if we go on for another season.”
The Diplomat is streaming on Netflix and has already been picked up for a season two.
