How ‘The Diplomat’ Leads Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell Became TV’s Hottest New Couple

thewrap.com:

Kaleidoscope”. ‘The thing about Rufus I think a lot of folks necessarily haven’t necessarily experienced from him is that he is funny.

So smartly funny. And you saw a little bit of it when he did the guest spot on ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ [in Season 2]. He’s always kind of a bad guy, he’s brilliant at it.

But there’s such a charm to him.”“The Diplomat” has one of the most unusual tones in dramatic television (imagine if “House of Cards”—which Schubert also cast—written by a combination of Greta Gerwig and Amy Sherman-Palladino, speaking of “Maisel”), and the supporting cast was just as important, so Schubert and her team (including Lucinda Syson and Natasha Vincent) turned to the London stage for those roles, played vividly by actors as varied as Ali Ahn, David Gyasi, Nana Mensah, Celia Imrie and Ato Essandoh (who TheWrap rightfully composed a tone poem to this season.)“President Rayburn was the one that I think we all had a point of view of what we thought it would be,” says Schubert. “And I remember emailing everybody, saying, ‘What do you think of Michael McKean, literally the very first thing I’d ever said on email.

And then conversations continued and continued. And while Rayburn is incredibly important to the story, it is a character that kind of comes in and out and then about two months later, someone said, ‘What about Michael McKean,’ and I was like, ‘Yes, genius idea, let’s do it.’” So, what was the directive of showrunner Debora Cahn (“Homeland,” “Fosse/Verdon”) for casting? “Really f—king good actors, pardon my French,” laughs Schubert. “Everyone was really, really protective of the script and no one really read it [in the early phases].