‘The Diplomat’ Creator Couldn’t Picture Keri Russell as Kate Wyler: ‘This Is Not Gonna Work Out’
For fans of The Diplomat, it might be hard to picture anyone other than actor Keri Russell as Kate Wyler. But for creator Debora Cahn it was initially the opposite. She couldn’t see Russell playing a newly minted UK ambassador as she’s thrown into the world of international politics. Russell, for her part, wasn’t so sure about joining the cast either. What changed their minds, ahead.
Keri Russell wasn’t the obvious choice to play Kate Wyler
Cahn wasn’t convinced Russell was the right actor to play Kate on The Diplomat. As she told Variety, she pictured Russell’s award-winning turn as Elizabeth in The Americans. She couldn’t see how she could portray frazzled yet smart Kate, who almost exclusively wore the same pantsuit.
“I was like, ‘Elizabeth from The Americans?’” Cahn recalled saying when executives at Netflix suggested Russell for the part. “‘Like, sophisticated and gorgeous…?’” That wasn’t The Diplomat’s lead character, and she said so.
“When somebody brought Keri up,” she continued, “I was like, ‘Kate is a neurotic, itchy character with, like, some form of eczema in a spot that you can’t really see. This is not gonna work out.”
Whereas Netflix execs wanted only Russell. “It was like, ‘We have to have her,’” Jinny Howe, Netflix’s vice president of scripted series, said.
Little did Cahn know, but The Diplomat would later hold the spot as Netflix’s most-viewed series for two weeks after it premiered in April 2023. Russell also landed Emmy, Golden Globe, Critics Choice, and SAG award nominations for her performance as Kate.
A Zoom call changed ‘The Diplomat’ creator’s mind about casting Russell
It took a Christmastime Zoom call with Russell, who was cooking a big family dinner, for Cahn to change her mind. Not even a minute into the call, she knew the Golden Globe winner was the right person to play Kate.
“We were on the phone for 38 seconds, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God. She’s her!’” Cahn recalled. “Because she’s funny, and I was laughing hysterically.”
“She was like watching a stand-up monologue. And just the hair, and the cooking for a million people,” she added.
Russell also had doubts about playing Kate Wyler
Cahn wasn’t the only one skeptical about Russell joining the cast—so was Russell herself. Taking on the role of Kate, the Felicity alum explained, meant breaking the deal she and partner Matthew Rhys had about one of them staying at home with their children while the other worked. Not to mention The Diplomat would mean shooting in London, England.
It took an annual trip to Big Sur, during which she couldn’t stop thinking about The Diplomat, and something Gloria Steinem said, to convince Russell to play Kate.
She told Rhys it was his turn to “pick up the slack” at home and signed on for the show. Thanks to its success, production is now being split between the U.K. and New York, so Brooklyn-based Russell, as well as Cahn, will be able to see their families more.
The Diplomat Season 2 hits Netflix on Oct. 31, 2024.
