1. The show is based on a real-life illegal spy program.
2. There were actual marriages like the one between Martha and "Clark."
3. The C.I.A. has to approve all the scripts.
4. Real-life spying is way more boring than it looks on the show.
5. One of the Russian ex-spy couples who inspired the show agree it nails the emotional elements of deep-cover espionage.
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“The result looks pretty much like reality, but of course without the murders and the wigs," Andrei Bezrukov, who lived undercover in the U.S. as the Canadian "Donald Heathfield," told a Russian newspaper. "My wife Elena and I didn’t expect that the American creators of the series would want and be able to show the characters of the agents so deeply and impartially, even with sympathy."
(You can hear Bezrukov's muted, difficult-to-place, but definitely not Canadian accent in this video — he's on the right.)
6. Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, who play married KGB officers Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, are a couple offscreen too.
7. Russell's pregnancy required some creative props while shooting Season 4.
8. Russell loves subverting gender stereotypes as the icy, die-hard Soviet patriot formerly known as Nadezhda.
9. Matthew Rhys is a Welshman playing a Russian pretending to be an American, and his real accent is charming AF.
10. Welsh was his first language.
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"There’s no doubt it has enormously enriched my skill set as an actor," he told The Guardian. "It gives another perspective on language as a whole and I enjoy the detective work of etymology when you see the crossovers in other languages."
11. Alison Wright, who plays (poor!) Martha, is also doing an American accent — she's from the north of England.
12. And we ~might~ get to see Martha again in Season 5.
13. All the Russian characters are played by Russian-speaking actors.
14. The Russian dialogue is written first in English and then translated.
15. The showrunners actually have no idea what the actors are saying during the Russian scenes.
16. Annet Mahendru, who played Nina, speaks six languages.
17. Costa Ronin, who plays Oleg, auditioned for the show after seeing a billboard while he was driving around LA.
С 23-го февраля вас, защитники отечества #TheAmericans #TheAmericansFX
"How can I not be on this show?" Ronin recalled telling his manager. He grew up in Kaliningrad, Russia, moved to New Zealand as a teen and was cast in The Americans after an intense bilingual audition and chemistry read with Mahendru.
18. Noah Emmerich (FBI agent Stan Beeman) recently romanced another Nina in Aziz Ansari's Netflix series Master of None.
Dev vs. The Other Man #MasterofNone
In that show, he played the husband of a food critic named Nina (Claire Danes) who has an affair with Ansari's character. You might also recognize him from 1998's The Truman Show.
19. Nina was originally supposed to have just a two-episode arc.
20. Maximiliano Hernández, who played FBI agent Chris Amador, knew his character was going to be killed several episodes before it happened.
21. The spy gadgets used (as well as zillions of other details on the show, from vintage ads to the air dates of 1980s TV programs) are historically accurate.
KGB LILLIPUT, recorded 90 hours on strip of wire, listening in on #theamericans, Season 3, January. @theamericansfx
Spycraft expert H. Keith Melton, co-founder of the International Spy Museum, advises on espionage techniques and has lent out items from his collection to be used on the show.
22. The disguises used on the show have names and backstories of their own.
23. Some of the props play multiple roles.
24. There's a Felicity wig on set, though it hasn't gotten any screen time yet.
25. Holly Taylor and Keidrich Sellati, the teen actors who play the Jennings kids, just wanna do some spying already.
26. The show (finally!) got nominated for the 2016 Emmys in the Outstanding Drama Series, Best Drama Actor and Best Drama Actress categories, and the stars' reactions are pretty darn sweet.
HOLY POOP ON A STICK WHAT THE HECK MY MOM JUST SCREAMED IN PANERA!!! #THEAMERICANS #MATTANDKERIOMG #EMMYS
Margo Martindale (Claudia) has been nominated for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for each season of The Americans and took home the award in 2015. She scored her first Emmy in 2011 for her work on another FX series, Justified.
27. Martindale and Tony Award winner Frank Langella (Gabriel) will be back as the Jennings' KGB handlers in Season 5.
