KERI SHOWS HER GOOD SIDE

Keri Russell's portrayal of Kate Wyler in The Diplomat, her first substantial TV role since the Soviet spy drama The Americans, finds her switching sides, starring as a savvy civil servant tasked with upholding America's reputation abroad.

- ALEXIS SOLOSKI

ON a recent Thursday afternoon, actress Keri Russell paused in a corner of Brooklyn Bridge Park to admire a starling. It was technically spring, though the weather had other ideas, and Keri, in subdued plumage, braved the wind in chunky boots and a black puffer jacket. Her hair was tousled. Liner ringed each eye, possibly a souvenir from the previous night's too many margaritas with friends. She didn't look much like a woman who devoted years of her life to undermining the American democratic project. Or like a woman now charged with safeguarding it.

But Keri has been both of those women (and many other women besides). At this point in her career, she is probably best known for her six seasons on the FX drama The Americans as Elizabeth Jennings, a Soviet sleeper agent with an ambitious collection of ruses and wigs who earned Keri three Emmy nominations. Her current opposing role is in the Netflix series The Diplomat, in which she stars as Kate Wyler, the US ambassador to the United Kingdom.

A veteran diplomat, Kate is about to take a post in Kabul when an international incident shunts her and her husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell), to London. An English manor house is not a war zone, but Kate behaves otherwise. Armoured in punishing heels and sleek sheath dresses, she treats even polite conversation as battlefield manoeuvres. But in a departure from The Americans, Kate's work is almost entirely above-board. She wears no wigs.

As some Canada geese waddled nearby, Keri considered the disparities between these two roles. 'It was fun being a baddie, doing sneaky stuff," she said. But The Diplomat also has its pleasures. 'It's awesome to be smart and capable and dress people down and be so steady about it.' If Elizabeth is a baddie, does that make Kate a goodie? Keri gave a cagey smile. 'We'll see.'