Guy Pearce Damien Lewis Kim Philby Britain Washington city Moscow Lebanon city Easttown Cold War spies Cable TV Guy Pearce Damien Lewis Kim Philby Britain Washington city Moscow Lebanon city Easttown

How Guy Pearce found his motivation playing British spy traitor Kim Philby: ‘So tragic’

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Damien Lewis) — drives the narrative arc of “A Spy Among Friends,” airing Sundays on MGM+ (10 p.m.). “One part of me feels I know [Philby], to a degree, and there’s another part of me that goes, ‘I have no idea,'” Pearce, 55, told The Post. “One the one hand, yes, I got a grasp of Philby … but he was always sort of slipping through my fingers.“I kept vacillating between trying to simplify things and go, ‘Well, I guess he was just on the fence — on one level he did believe in Communism and on another level he was embedded in the British ruling structure but had a disdain for it so he simply played both sides.’“And then I think, ‘Nah, it’s not as simple as that.'”The six-part series, based on Ben Macintyre’s novel, opens in 1963, when Elliott, whose relationship with Philby dates back to 1940, learns of his best friend’s decades-long deceit — and convinces his bosses at MI6 (also known as SIS) to send him to Lebanon, where Philby, previously exonerated of any wrongdoing, is still spying for Moscow.

Their four-day, face-to-face meeting — and what Elliott said to Philby on a hotel balcony, out of earshot of recording devices — is a central motif as the series progresses, jumping back and forth in time to track the roots of their friendship and Philby’s treachery (he spent several years in Washington, DC in the late ’40s/early ’50s).“I think Philby, in the end, probably felt most hurt by the breakdown of that friendship,” said Pearce (“Mare of Easttown,” “LA Confidental”). “I think he truly believed that Nicholas knew and would understand why he did what he did, but Elliott wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of admitting that.

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