Spies are back, at least according to rising star Agnes O’Casey, who is playing four agent roles this year and who unsurprisingly has some thoughts about the most famous spook of all.
“I was playing a game of ‘Would you rather be?’ with friends recently and the question was ‘Bond or Indiana’, and after that question I just became obsessed with the idea of playing Bond,” O’Casey told Deadline. “I’d love to be a female Bond and for her to shapeshift in the way he does, to have ‘Bond girls’ be ‘Bond guys’. Now in my head it’s like the most fun thing ever. I want to speed around in an Aston Martin.”
O’Casey certainly has the chops. Her spook roles this year include Liz Gold in the West End adaptation of John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, which she will reprise in the BBC-MGM+’s Legacy of Spies, along with a return to Netflix’s Black Doves and, finally, Apple TV’s Star City.
She is at Canneseries this weekend promoting the latter, a spinoff of For All Mankind starring Rhys Ifans and Anna Maxwell Martin about the Soviet Union and the space race. O’Casey plays Irina Morozova, a recent addition to the surveillance department who is taken under the wing of the head of the department (Maxwell Martin). An older version of her was played by Svetlana Efremova in For All Mankind.
“When I received the breakdown of my character I just felt like this was in my wheelhouse,” said O’Casey, who broke out playing yet another undercover role in the BBC’s Ridley Road. “Irina is an amazing character because at first she felt like a baddie and I needed to find a way to justify her but I slowly started to think about her as more nuanced. She’s a fish out of water but is also thrilled by that, so there was a lot to play with.”
Unsurprisingly given her current spy penchant, O’Casey researched the role deeply, reading Svetlana Alexievich’s oral history Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, and Ben Macintyre’s The Spy and The Traitor, which she says became something of a “bible” to the Star City cast.
For All Mankind is expanding the franchise after quietly becoming one of Apple TV’s longest-running series of all time, and O’Casey said she has been amazed at the “different spectrum of people in my life” who count themselves huge fans.
‘Legacy of Spies’
Agnes O’Casey
She is now preparing to shoot Legacy of Spies with all-star cast including Matthew Macfadyen, Daniel Brühl and Dan Stevens.
“I found my feet with this play as a theater actress,” she said. “So I’m really excited to film something where I feel like I have a strong grip. I’m not scrabbling around for who she is.”
So what is it about being undercover that attracts O’Casey?
“There’s something about a double life that is appealing,” she explained. “At school I was well behaved but secretly felt like I was badly behaved. We all somewhat feel like we are living a double life.”
Star City has its world premiere Sunday at Canneseries.
