In the new FX limited series The veil, Elisabeth Moss gives another standout performance as “Imogen,” whose name is in quotes because we know from the beginning that it is not the secretive British spy's real name. While the compelling character drives the series' momentum, Imogen is not Moss's favorite character on the show. That honor belongs to Max, the headstrong American CIA officer played by Josh Charles. (A notably different role from his recent appearance in a Taylor Swift music video.)
“Every time we read the script, I played Max,” Moss says with a laugh. Consequence. “Nobody [else was] allowed to play Max. This is not a lie. Even if there was a man available to play Max, he's my character. He has the best lines on the show.” However, she was delighted to see Charles play the character on screen, because “you never get tired of him.”
The veilwritten by the always prolific Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders, See, spencer), is a modern spy story where half of the drama comes from watching intelligence agents from three different countries interact. In this case, that means a battle between British, French and American agencies as Imogen escorts a suspected terrorist named Adilah (Yumna Marwan) from Turkey to London, while she hopes to get the secrets out of him needed to stop a pending attack.
Charles says that, as a “big fan” of the spy genre (he mentions the French series The Bureau as the current favorite), he was already intrigued when he got the call about The veil. Then “he read the first two scripts and I said, 'Yes.' What I really appreciated about this material is that I don't think it's a surprise that so many wonderful stories are told in the world of espionage, you know, because it's a great model for storytelling. And there's this really intimate character study, particularly with the two leads. I found that chess game really interesting.”
gentleman says Consequence that your inspiration for The veil came from a conversation with producer Denise Di Nova: “I had been talking to someone who had connections with the French intelligence services and was talking about how modern developments had led to some sort of adjustments within the US intelligence services, France and Great Britain. due to the new challenges and frictions involved.”
Knight had previously investigated espionage operations in the United States and Britain for unproduced projects, so he went to Paris “and met some people who did not want to be accredited and who were part of the French Intelligence Services. And from fragments that they told me, I began to put together this story.”
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