Exclusive Interview With James Bond Comic Book Writer Warren Ellis

This is a big week for James Bond fans. Tomorrow sees the release of both the collected edition of the first new 007 comic book storyline in more than twenty years, VARGR, and the first issue of Dynamite's second storyline, EIDOLON, both written by comics superstar Warren Ellis (Global Frequency, RED). The gorgeous VARGR hardcover (which includes a gallery of all of the series' beautiful variant covers as well as some stunning concept art by series artist Jason Masters) will look great on the shelf alongside all your other Bond continuation novels.

With British author Warren Ellis, Dynamite seemed to land the perfect writer for a new generation of contemporary 007 comics. Ellis achieved great acclaim for his original series like Transmetropolitan and Planetary, as well as his work on mainstream superhero titles like Iron Man and Excaliber. But it was his previous forays into the paranoid world of spies and espionage in series like Global Frequency, RED (which was turned into a 2010 movie starring Bruce Willis which in turn spawned a sequel) and Reload (with former James Bond artist Paul Gulacy) that made Ellis ideally suited for Ian Fleming's superspy.

He recently took a moment for a brief exclusive interview with the Double O Section to answer some deep-cut, hardcore Bond nerd questions, and to discuss his work on "VARGR" and what we can expect from "EIDOLON" (which reintroduces SPECTRE to the world of the literary 007!).

00: You've taken on the Bond myth before in some other guises. How is your Bond different from the Bond/Nick Fury analogue in Planetary, John Stone? 

Ellis: Well, that character was much more of a specific riff on Marvel's Nick Fury character from the 1960s -- its only relationship to Bond was in the things that Nick Fury's writers and artists took from Bond. My Bond is the Bond of the books, by design and agreement with the Ian Fleming estate, and there's not, to my eye, a lot of connection there beyond the superficial. 

00: Obviously you re-read a lot of Fleming to prepare for this series. Since you're now an official 007 continuation author, working with the Fleming estate, did you delve at all into the work of any previous continuation authors, like Kingsley Amis, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, or William Boyd? Or is it necessary to consciously avoid that? 

Ellis: I decided to consciously avoid that. The remit was very much to live within the Bond of the books, and my decision was to only read the Fleming. Going in, I was terrified of pastiche or dilution, and to read the continuation books would put me at a remove from the central texts. The only non-Fleming reading I did was Amis' non-fiction appreciation of Bond [The James Bond Dossier], just to complement my own notes.

I never really thought of myself as an "official" 007 continuation author before. I quite like that. Thank you. 

00: You're welcome! It's a great group to be in. There are some elements very much present in Fleming, but which have become exaggerated in the films – notably the gadgets (attaché cases with hidden weapons as opposed to invisible cars) and humor (wry observations rather than puns). How do you walk that line between the book and film takes on those things, and will we see more of either in EIDOLON? 

Ellis: There were one or two gags I couldn't resist, just as I couldn't resist opening VARGR with a movie-style cold open. I'm never going to get another opportunity to write one of those, after all. But, in general, I cleave much more towards the more reserved tone of the books. Not perfectly, I know -- I leaven the text when the opportunity presents itself, not least because it opens up Bond's personality. I don't have access to the ease of interiority that prose provides, so I take advantage of dialogue interplay and body language, the affordances of comics.

EIDOLON might be a little "lighter" than VARGR, as I allow myself a few Fleming-isms that I avoided in VARGR. "Dharma Reach" was a fun name in VARGR, for instance, but there's a female character in EIDOLON with a far more full-on Fleming-y name.  As in Fleming, it's the little details that make it live.

Be sure to pick up the collected edition of VARGR if you haven't already to revel in those little details, and check out James Bond 007 #7, in comic shops June 22, to read Ellis's latest Bond adventure. Thank you to Warren Ellis for taking the time for this interview and to Dynamite Entertainment for making it happen.

Read my review of James Bond 007 #1, the premiere issue of VARGR, here.
Read about the recently reissued 1960s James Bond manga collections here.
Pre-order James Bond 007: VARGR from Amazon here.

Watch Video of Dame Diana Rigg's BFI Avengers Q&A

As we first heard back in September, the greatest female spy star of all time, Dame Diana Rigg (star of The Avengers and On Her Majesty's Secret Service) did a Q&A following a screening of a classic Avengers episode at the British Film Institute last week. I was so disappointed not to be able to fly to London for that event, but now BFI has been kind enough to put video of that Q&A (moderated by BFI curator Dick Fiddy) up on their website! She is completely open, candidly discussing a number of aspects of The Avengers and her career at large. Wearing a scarf that evokes the door to Emma Peel's flat, Rigg happily discusses a number of topics including her co-star, the late, great Patrick Macnee ("He was a deeply generous, dear, dear man, and I grieve his passing"), her predecessor Honor Blackman ("who's wonderful"), her character Emma Peel ("Dear God, was I lucky to get a chance to play this woman!"), the leather catsuits ("They were deeply uncomfortable, and hot, and sticky"), the cars ("they were very hard to drive!"), her delight at the remastering of the episodes on DVD ("I've been restored!"), the directors ("I was working with these brilliant men, and I didn't know it, and that is a great regret of mine, because I would have paid them homage had I known"), Emma's place in feminism ("I truly do think that she was a very, very potent influence in women claiming their place in the world"), Theater of Blood ("that film was such fun!"), Avengers writers ("Brian Clemens was brilliant"), On Her Majesty's Secret Service ("they had pots of money to spend on the Bond, which we didn't on The Avengers"), and George Lazenby ("George was not bad! He was not. He was just boring off [camera]!"). She also touches on The Sentimental Agent, "The Hothouse" (which she'd never seen), Euripides, Ian Hendry, Guy Hamilton, Vincent Price, Mark Gatiss, Doctor Who, and even Friends. This video is just so must-watch you shouldn't even still be on this page. Go watch it! Now! It's great!

Watched it? Great! Now for more on that auspicious day at BFI, check out a fan's perspective on meeting an icon at Home Arty Home, and then check out a collection of Avengers-inspired pop art that was on display at the event at Art & Hue. Great stuff! (Thanks to Art & Hue for the links.)

Warren Ellis Gives Good Bond Interviews

Anthony Horowitz is a brilliant writer, but proved himself a less brilliant interviewee a few weeks ago when he put his foot in his mouth promoting his new James Bond novel Trigger Mortis and the Internet didn't like it. He also made some odd statements about how he viewed the character of Bond, but fortunately his novel doesn't bear them out. Warren Ellis, on the other hand, whose new 007 comic book debuts November 4, speaks quite eloquently about Bond in every interview I've read so far. Read this latest, with Bleeding Cool, for example. He even navigates the tricky waters of what Sarah Palin would call "gotcha questions," like "Seen through a contemporary lens, Bond comes across as misogynistic at times; how do you deal with that misogyny in a modern series?" Other Bond writers have stumbled over such questions in the past, but Ellis handles it as well as any I've seen, saying:

A lot of this, of course, is about postwar British mores: many of them were still around when I was growing up in the Seventies. The attitude to people of colour, the notion that lesbians really just needed a good seeing-to to fix them… all depressingly familiar. Contemporising Bond, for me, requires the writer to move that baseline — on a simple level, it was possible for the Bond of Casino Royale to have grown up with those views inculcated into him, because Bond was conceived of as an “ordinary” man, but the Bond of VARGR [the title of Ellis' first story arc] could not have grown up like that.

All that said: yes, I believe there to be a streak of misogyny in Bond, but I think a contemporary reading exposes much (but not all) of that as misanthropy. I suspect Bill Tanner is Bond’s one single friend.

I think that's a very interesting response! Be sure to read the entire interview.

James Bond 007 #1, from Dynamite Entertainment, hits comics shops November 4, days before SPECTRE opens in theaters.

Warren Ellis Shares Tantalizing Details About His James Bond Comic Book

New James Bond continuation author Anthony Horowitz's ideas about James Bond's character have been getting a lot of play on the Internet lately for all the wrong reasons, but another new Bond writer has also shared his ideas about who 007 is this week in a couple of interviews. It was announced in July that Warren Ellis would be the first writer on Dynamite's flagship James Bond comic book series, and that was fantastic news. I was hoping (and guessing) the company would spring for a big name on at least the first arc, and Ellis is among the biggest. He's also, happily, a terrific writer, and no stranger to spies having written RED (which formed the basis for the Bruce Willis movies), Reload (with former Bond comic illustrator Paul Gulacy), and his magnum opus Planetary, which featured a Bond/Nick Fury analogue. Speaking with Sarah and Dan's Extra Edition on BBC radio on August 4, Ellis revealed that although his Bond is very much Ian Fleming's literary character, and not the movie Bond, he couldn't resist one homage to the movies - a thrilling, pre-credits sequence-style "cold open." ("It's a duel in a building site outside Helsinki in Finland"). He also gave a description of his first arc, entitled VARGR.

"006 has died," Ellis explained. "And 007 is given his workload to carry on with until 006 can be replaced. And this fine thing going into a situation without the correct preparation. And what he thought was a very simple counterespionage gig involving the drugs trade turns out to be something far, far larger and a direct attack on the British Isles. It's set, as I say, in Finland; it's set in Berlin in the winter, and it's set on a tiny island off the Norwegian coast." He also revealed that the villain of the piece, a Serbian, would be named Slavan Kurjak.

In a more in-depth interview this week with Dynamic Forces, Ellis shared even more. He confirmed that he will be staying with the title for at least one more arc beyond the first six issues, and revealed some of the supporting characters from Fleming's novels who will turn up in VARGR. "You can’t do Bond without M, Moneypenny and Bill Tanner. And Major Boothroyd. I haven’t decided on the second volume yet, but I’d like to work the Felix Leiter of the novels in there." He also explained the somewhat mystifying title (which I had thought was an acronym), saying, "VARGR is an Old Norse word meaning variously wolf, evildoer or destroyer." Proving his cred for writing 007, Ellis shared his own five favorite Fleming novels (all excellent choices, if you ask me!), concluding that "You Only Live Twice is possibly my favorite because it shows Bond at his most lost and broken," which may offer a good indication of the sort of 007 we can expect to see in his comic. Perhaps most interestingly of all, he offers his take on Bond's character, and, proving that there are many valid interpretations of a given text, it's in some ways at odds with Horowitz's analysis. Read the entire interview for all the juicy details and more hints of what we can expect this fall from Ellis and artist Jason Masters.

When it was first announced last year that Dynamite would publish new James Bond comics, it seemed inevitable that we could expect multiple variant covers. (The company loves them.) Now, with the comic due out November 4 (just as SPECTRE hits theaters), we've got our first glimpse of them! Comic Book Resources debuted a handful of variants and retailer incentives that will drive 007 completists crazy tracking them all down this fall, some of which illustrate this story. See the others at CBR. I have to say, I love the title treatment! Maybe not quite as much as I loved Dark Horse's Bond comics title treatment in the 90s, but this one is very contemporary and very striking.

All in all, I can't quite pinpoint whether I'm more excited about Horowitz's 1950s-set novel Trigger Mortis, or Ellis's present-day continuation comic VARGR! It's going to be a great fall for Bond fans.

Besides the contemporary flagship series, Dynamite also plans a period "Year One"-type 007 origin story by a different, yet to be announced writer set in Fleming's original timeline (placing it either in the Forties or Fifties), and a series of graphic novel adaptations of Fleming's novels. Their deal with Ian Fleming Publications lasts ten years, so we can look forward to a lot of Bond comics in the coming decade - hopefully enough to make up for the past two decades in which Agent 007 has been completely absent from comics shelves! (Excepting a one-off graphic novel adaptation of the first Young Bond adventure, Silverfin.)
Thanks to Jack and Maurice!

Alex Rider to Return... in Print and on Screen?

Author and TV producer Anthony Horowitz (Foyle's War) gave a spoiler-filled interview with The Mail promoting his new James Bond novel Trigger Mortis, and in it he says that his popular teen spy character Alex Rider may soon return. Rider was very publicly retired in Horowitz's 2011 novel Scorpia Rising, which was subtitled "The Final Mission" and billed as a definitive swan song for the boy agent. But now the author tells the tabloid he will return in a surprisingly political (and now historical) scenario. In the midst of discussing his disillusionment with Tony Blair and disgust with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Horowitz told the Mail, "I’m going to write a new novella – my 'Octopussy.' A five-chapter story set in Iraq. Nobody knows that, so you’ve got a scoop. It has Alex penetrating the mountains in northern Iraq to discover the weapons of mass destruction."

"There are some, then?" interviewer Cole Moreton probes.

"Not after Alex finishes with them. That’s why Tony Blair never found them!" replies Horowitz. Moreton treats this as the very scoop Horowitz promises (and, indeed, the timeline fits; Alex's literary adventures spanned from 2000-2011), though to me it sounds like dry humor, so I'm not sure whether to take that "scoop" at face value or not. A new Alex Rider story would certainly be welcome, however!

Horowitz also teases that the teen spy could return to film. There was a movie made of the first book, Stormbreaker, back in 2006 (review here), but it was unceremoniously dumped by its American distributor and consequently flopped at the U.S. box office, despite a cast that included Ewan McGregor, Damian Lewis, Alex Pettyfer, Bill Nighy and Stephen Fry. Owing to the novels' immense popularity, though (especially in the UK), the franchise would seem one ripe for rebooting a decade later. And apparently there's someone, at least, thinking along those very lines. All Horowitz will reveal is, "There is interest from producers about making another but it is way too early to be able to talk about a film without putting a curse on it." That would be great! In fact, I would rather see Alex Rider get another shot cinematically than make a comeback in print. Let's all cross our fingers.

The whole interview (in which Horowitz makes some controversial statements about Ian Fleming and Skyfall, among other Bondian topics), as well as an exciting excerpt from Trigger Mortis that accompanies it, is well worth reading—but perhaps not until after you've read Horowitz's Bond novel. As I noted above, it certainly appears to be shockingly full of spoilers for the novel, and I wish I hadn't read it prior to reading the book. So proceed at your own risk.

Anthony Horowitz on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson Tonight!

There's a reason why Craig Ferguson has become my favorite late night host in the last couple of years. (And why I'll be devastated when he goes off the air at the end of this year.) It's because he has impeccable taste. Not only is he a huge Doctor Who fan, but lately he's become a huge Foyle's War fan as well. See what I mean? Impeccable taste! Foyle's War is of course the excellent period mystery series created by Anthony Horowitz starring Michael Kitchen (Tanner in the Pierce Brosnan Bond films) as a detective solving cases in the seaside town of Hastings during WWII. Naturally, given the wartime setting, lots of his cases involve espionage. And in the latest series, set after the war in the early days of the Cold War, Foyle has gone to work for MI5 and the show has become a full-time spy show. You can watch Ferguson's entertaining musings about Foyle's War during his opening on 4/22 and 4/23; middle on 4/21 and 4/22 and 4/23; and ending segments on 4/18 and 4/21, as well as with guests like Eddie Izzard.

Anyway, the upshot of Ferguson's infatuation with DCI Foyle is that tonight Horowitz will appear as a guest on his show! (The Late Late Show airs at 12:35 Eastern/Pacific, so I'm sorry this notice comes a bit late for East Coasters.) Spy fans know Horowitz not only as the creator of Foyle's War, but also as the author of the hugely successful teen spy novels featuring Alex Rider. Hopefully Ferguson will ask him about those, too. (He's also written for Poirot.) And hopefully Horowitz will drop some hints on the future of Foyle's War! At any rate, it's a pretty rare occurrence to see the creator of a great British spy series interviewed on American TV, so it should be worth tuning in.

The entire series of Foyle's War can currently be streamed on Acorn TV.

Steve Coogan Shows Off His Bond Impressions on The Jonathan Ross Show

In The Trip, we saw Steve Coogan and Rob Bryden attempt to outdo each other with their hilarious Michael Caine impressions, and we saw Coogan do a terrific Roger Moore. On The Jonathan Ross Show last week, the British actor/comedian showed off his impressive impressions of other Bond actors. Coogan's Dalton leaves a lot to be desired (and sadly he doesn't do a Lazenby even though he claims to have every Bond actor but Craig in his repertoire), but his Moore and Brosnan are particularly spot-on. Check it out:



Coogan can currently be seen starring opposite former M actress Judi Dench in the Oscar-touted dramady Philomena. At one time he was linked (along with Ben Stiller) to play the Roger Moore role in a feature film remake of The Persuaders!, but sadly that never came to be. Coogan's career is littered with Bond reverence and references. His signature character Alan Partridge is obsessed with Roger Moore, and it's a running joke on the premiere of Coogan's first Partridge-centric series Knowing Me, Knowing You, that Moore fails to show up for an interview on Alan's chat show. In one of the most memorable episodes of the subsequent series, I'm Alan Partridge, Alan hilariously re-enacts the entirety of The Spy Who Loved Me for his friends when the VCR breaks.

Interview: The Americans Executive Producer Graham Yost Reveals His Spy Influences

Earlier this week, FX promoted their new spy series The Americans in a big way in Los Angeles. The Americans follows a married couple, Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings (Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell) who are really Russian KGB agents spying on the United States at the dawn of the Reagan era. Therefore, to promote it, a full-size Soviet submarine "surfaced" in the middle of the courtyard at the busy Hollywood and Highland shopping mall, manned by a full crew of Russian sailors who later marched around the complex as a Russian helicopter flew overhead. ("I think that explains how the Soviet Union lost the Cold War," quipped series executive producer Graham Yost. "Their submarine surfaced in a shopping mall!") It was a pretty impressive spectacle—especially considering FX's publicity people got the sub fully constructed and then fully removed in the course of a single day.

The submarine was just the public spectacle, however. More privately, Graham Yost was on hand to talk to press at a Russian-themed luncheon. I was lucky enough to attend, and had the opportunity to grill Yost on his own favorite spy shows and literature as part of a round table. First, however, Yost made sure to talk up the creator of The Americans, Joe Weisberg. According to Yost, he first worked with Weisberg on a CIA pilot called The Station which didn't go to series. (I'm not sure if this is the same Station I was so excited for during the 2009 pilot season, or a different spy show of the same title that also didn't get picked up.) At any rate, Yost loved collaborating with Weisberg, and knew he wanted to work together again. They briefly teamed up on the first season of Falling Skies, but it took a big news story to set them on their path towards The Americans.

After the Anna Chapman Russian spy ring was busted in the summer of 2010, every writer in Hollywood was trying to figure out how to capitalize on it. Yost knew that Weisberg was the guy to write that story, since Weisberg had himself been a CIA officer prior to becoming a writer. In fact, Yost thinks the Agency may have played a role in Weisberg's post-spook career. During one of their routine polygraph tests, a Langley staffer asked him if he only wanted to be in the CIA so that he could one day write about it. The way Yost tells it, that hadn't really occurred to Weisberg until he was asked that question! The upshot, however, is that everything Weisberg writes now has to be vetted by the CIA. (Redacted sentences were turned into a good gimmick in his debut spy novel, An Ordinary Spy.) That means, of course, that on some level the CIA has endorsed The Americans! (It's not clear, however, whether episodes not penned by Weisberg must also be submitted because of his producing role.) Anyway, Weisberg did indeed crack the Russian spy plot, with a little help from a studio executive who had the brilliant idea of setting the story in 1981. "Make it a period show," summarizes Yost. "The last great gasp of the Cold War. Reagan's just been elected; he's calling the Soviet Union 'the Evil Empire.' And the stakes just ratcheted up. The tension, the stakes, was the highest it had been in the Cold War since the Cuban Missile Crisis."

Beyond the period setting, the next key to success was focusing on a marriage. "It's not just a show about KGB spies in Washington in 1981," Yost explained. "It's also a story about a marriage." The Soviet agents have been married for 15 years because they were assigned to do so, but only as the series opens are they just beginning to fall in love. Both the removed time period and the relationship/family aspect make it easier for audiences to relate to Russian agents on The Americans. But they shouldn't completely forget which side these characters are on. "We want the audience to be rooting for Phillip and Elizabeth and then halfway through each episode say, 'Wait a minute! We're rooting for the KGB?!'"

Yost himself may not have been a CIA agent, but he's no stranger to spies, either. In the 1980s (while Phillip and Elizabeth were stealing our nation's secrets), Yost penned several non-fiction books about spying. One title, about cutting-edge espionage technology circa 1985, was a favorite of mine as a kid. I had Spy-Tech (part of the young adult-friendly "Facts on File" series) on near permanent loan from the local Waterford Library until my parents eventually bought me a copy of my own. I told Yost that I'd grown up reading that book, along with his volumes on the KGB and the CIA in the World Espionage series, and asked if he'd been looking for a spy story to tell ever since he wrote those guides.

"You know my secret!" he said. "I grew up on James Bond films, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., reading other spy-related books, reading James Bond books as well as watching the movies. There was a toy in the Sixties called Secret Sam, and it had a gun in a briefcase and there was a little button on the outside so you could shoot the gun from the outside and a little plastic bullet would come out. And I would set the gun up in my room on a piece of string and my mother would come in and I'd shoot her in the back! (But she bought me the toy.) At any rate, as a start of production gift, Richard Deutch, my assistant, tracked down two of these on Ebay and got them for [fellow executive producers] Joe [Weisberg] and Joel [Fields]. And now I need to get one for myself. So, yes, to answer your question really long-windedly, I love the spy genre. I remember being a teenager and watching Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy from the BBC, which John Irvin directed, and just being really riveted. And that started me off on John le Carré books, and yeah, I read as much spy stuff as I can."

Another journalist asked prudently if another British spy show, Sleepers, had been an influence, since the story about two Soviet sleeper agents "awakened" in Britain after they've fallen in love with Western culture shared a similar premise. Surprisingly, however, Yost wasn't familiar with Sleepers. "I don't know if Joe saw it or if Joel Fields saw it; I didn't see it."

Asked to what do he attributes the current popularity of the spy genre, Yost answered, "I would say that post-9/11 people understand how important good intelligence is." He sang the praises of Zero Dark Thirty, and said that he admired how it depicts intelligence work as cross-referencing files, tracking down a name. But The Americans, he's quick to point out, isn't quite that reality-driven. "I think for this show that it's that heightened reality. The movie Tinker Tailor did that quite well. I couldn't believe that they could take that book, and that miniseries, and squish it into a 2 1/2 hour film. It might not even be that long. They did a great job. There's just something about that intensity. That everything counts. That it is life and death." He aspires to that same level of intensity on his show.

So there are plenty of serious spy shows that influenced The Americans. But what about lighter fare? Personally, I can't imagine spies operating in a D.C. suburb in the 1980s without thinking of Scarecrow and Mrs. King (review here). I asked if that influenced The Americans in any way, and Yost let out a fond chuckle. "I watched so many episodes of that show in the Eighties," he said, "and I never thought of it in connection with The Americans." Hm. So maybe I'm the only one! That doesn't mean, however, that Yost and his colleagues aren't inspired by any less than serious spy fare. "We do take a lot from FX's other great spy show, though," he admitted, alluding to the hilarious animated genre send-up Archer. "We should have an agent from ISIS or ODIN show up." I concur!

Yost concluded his session by quoting the FX Networks President. "John Landgraf said something that I thought perfectly sums it up: 'We know who won the Cold War. We don't know if Phillip and Elizabeth will survive. And that's the story. Will the marriage survive? Will the children survive?'" To find out, tune in to The Americans on FX, Wednesdays at 10/9c.

Read my review of The Americans pilot here.

Interview With Steed and Mrs. Peel Writer Caleb Monroe

Joseph Michael Linsner variant cover to #1

BOOM! Studios' new comic book chronicling the further adventures of the original—the real—Avengers, Steed and Mrs. Peel, got off to a fantastic start last month with issue #0 (review here). Sometimes it takes months to get follow-ups to zero issues (or years, in the case of Marvel's Captain America miniseries by Loeb and Sale!), but BOOM! has rewarded fans with a quick follow-up. A few weeks later, the ongoing STEED & MRS. PEEL series began. Comics legend Mark Waid (Kingdom Come), who penned #0, is joined by regular writer Caleb Monroe and artist Will Sliney. Monroe was kind enough to venture over from the Ministry to the Double O Section for long enough to discuss the new series, and all things Avengers!

Hi Caleb, thanks for chatting. Can you tell me a bit about how the first original comic book stories about Steed and Mrs. Peel in two decades came about at Boom!, and how you got involved?

Afraid I don’t know how it all originated, exactly. I know BOOM! started by reprinting the Grant Morrison/Anne Caulfield/Ian Gibson STEED & MRS. PEEL comics originally put out by Eclipse in 1990 [soon available in trade paperback -ed], and decided to launch a new ongoing with Mark Waid. I’d done several books for BOOM! before, most while Waid was EIC; they thought my sensibilities would be a good match with the property and asked if I wanted to be a part of it, which I did!

Were you a fan of The Avengers already?

I was a fan, but a young one. My first exposure was seeing the film version when it came out in the 90s, but it was the Morrison reprints that renewed my interest in the TV show.

 What other spy stuff do you like? Anything from the Sixties?

I love the Bond films, of course (and the great connection between them and The Avengers in the form of Honor Blackman and Diana Rigg playing significant roles in both… Blackman as infamous Bond Girl Pussy Galore and Rigg in the role my editor Chris Rosa refers to as “the only true Bond Woman”). My personal favorite films in the spy genre are probably Ronin, Spy Game and Three Days of the Condor. I also take a depraved sort of enjoyment from the madness that is the 1966 Modesty Blaise film adaptation.

That's a guilty pleasure of mine as well. Dirk Bogarde makes that movie as the villain! So what did you do to bone up on the show before tackling the comic? Did you find any particular resources particularly helpful?

Just watching and rewatching the show, really. That’s where I’ve taken all my cues from. There’s a reason it’s a classic! I’ve consciously only watched the two seasons with Emma in them, wanting to get the specific flavor of that infamous partnership just right without having it blurred by memories of Steed’s other partner relationships.

There’s one book I do enjoy and use quite a bit for quick reference, and that’s The Avengers Dossier: The Definitive Unauthorized Guide, co-written by comics’ own brilliant Paul Cornell. You have to walk the line between having a comprehensive knowledge of the source material but not being so entrenched in it or loyal to it that you’re afraid to make the changes or try the new approaches that will lead to the best possible new stories.

I agree absolutely, and I can see why The Avengers Dossier appealed to you, in that case. It's probably my favorite Avengers reference book, mainly because the authors aren't afraid to have an opinion—or at times be irreverent. You should also definitely check out Andrew Pixley's The Avengers Files if you haven't already, for great character backgrounds. 

So Mark Waid wrote the zero issue, and now in #1 he's credited with "story" and you're credited with "script." Can you please illuminate the differences in those two aspects of writing this comic, and discuss your collaborative process with Waid?

The concept of the arc comes from Mark, it’s a great follow-up story to his zero issue. Our general take on the world and the characters was also set up by his solo issue. Then I take that plot and precedent and script it, breaking it down into issues, pages, panels, dialogue, etc. Essentially, Mark provided me with a skeleton and it’s my job to put the meat and skin on it. Or maybe the skin’s down to series artist par excellence, Will Sliney. I think I’m starting to mangle this particular metaphor. But that’s the gist of it. For me, in a lot of ways, it’s the best of both worlds: I get to work with one of the industry’s best writers and idea men, but at the same time he’s given me plenty of ways to make it my own. Or plenty of rope to hang myself with. I’ll leave it up to the discerning audience!

While #0 followed a very traditional Avengers TV episode formula (someone is murdered, Steed and Emma are needed, certain eccentrics are questioned leading to a confrontation with villains involving some judo), this first issue strikes new territory. While it evokes "The Nutshell" to some degree, this storyline seems like a bit of a departure for the characters. Was that always the intent?

There’s an old Hollywood adage: “Give me the same thing…only different!” As I said earlier, there’s a reason the show is a classic, so we don’t want to mess with that too much. On the other hand, the show had a very limited budget throughout its history that reigned in some of the types of stories they could attempt. The unlimited budget that pen and ink gives us allows us an opportunity to imagine what the original show might have attempted in the 60s if they’d had an unlimited budget of their own. We also have more variety of format available to us in an ongoing series. The original episodes all had to be the same length and be self-contained; that was just part of the format. I really enjoy that about the series, but we’re working in a different medium that gives us some different options. So look for self-contained issues, two-parters, three-parters…basically whatever the story calls for we can attempt. It’s actually a very exciting position to be in!

Sounds like it! Without giving too much away, can you discuss the direction this story is headed in? Will we find ourselves in more familiar Avengers territory before it's all done, or is the goal to put these beloved characters in an entirely new sort of experience?

I’ll just say, “Yes.” To both.

More than art, more than setting, even more than story, the number one most important thing in writing The Avengers is dialogue, and both Mark Waid in #0 and now you here have really nailed the distinctive banter between Steed and Emma. How did you go about getting their back-and-forth just right?

I wish I was a more self-aware in my process, but I’ll do my best to give you a straight answer. First, I watch(ed) the show and try to get a feel for its flow. If my schedule allows I like to watch an episode beforehand and go straight from that into scripting, with the rhythm of it still ringing in my ears, so to speak. Other than that, I don’t know exactly how to describe the process. I write an exchange, I say it out loud to myself, rewrite it, say it out loud again, polish it again…basically until I don’t see any other ways to improve it. Sometimes I’ll nail a scene right off the bat and will barely touch it again, sometimes I have to redo it again and again. I have no idea why it’s the former sometimes and the latter other times. When I say it out loud, in my mind I’m picturing Macnee and Rigg saying it, since just because it’s dialogue that sounds good doesn’t mean it’s something those two specific characters would necessarily say. If I can see them delivering those lines, I feel good about it.

Do you have any particular favorite exchanges from the TV show that inspired you?

I love them all! There are two scenes in particular, though, that finally helped me wrap my mind around Emma’s character. I was struggling early on with this dichotomy the show had: on one hand she’s this incredibly talented, groundbreaking feminist ideal, and on the other she’s constantly being bound, fetishized and threatened. She actually reminds me a lot of Wonder Woman in that way.

Then I was watching “A Surfeit of H2O,” and there’s this scene near the end where she’s literally being pressed to death in this machine. There she is, being painfully crushed, which also makes it difficult to talk, and as the villain gloats she says, “You diabolical mastermind, you.” Then he leaves and Steed comes up through a trapdoor—the classic “rescue”—and she sees him and says, “Gentlemen should knock before entering.” I realized that while she may have regularly found herself physically victimized or threatened, she was never a victim in attitude. She never takes these bindings on as any legitimate part of her reality, never lets them shape any part of her identity. She knows they’re outward expressions of the inner shortcomings of the (usually male) villains. The whole affair has very little to do with her in that regard.

The second exchange, one that helped me get a better feel for the dynamic between Steed and Peel, as well as one of the funnier lines of the series was in “Return of the Cybernauts”:

Paul Beresford says, “Surely Steed can handle this alone?

And Emma comes back with, “He could, but I musn’t let him find out.”

Yeah, those are both great exchanges! Emma's "diabolical mastermind" line in "Surfeit" is probably my favorite line in the whole series. Quintessential Avengers! And speaking of quintessential, The Avengers is a quintessentially English show, and you are very American. Yet you don't (to my own American ears, anyway) fall into any of the traps that some American comic writers do in capturing believable English dialogue. Was that a challenge?

Linsner variant cover to #0

It was certainly one of the things I was most concerned about. I have no perspective on whether I pulled it off, so it’s good to hear you say you thought I did! It was actually Rich Johnston from Bleeding Cool that helped put my mind at ease about the whole thing. We were discussing the upcoming series at Comic-Con and I told him he’d have to let me know when I inevitably mangled the Britishisms. But he told me not to worry about it: while made in the UK, the show’s biggest audience, particularly during the Peel years, was here in the US, so the language and word choice in the original show was already fairly “Americanized” to make it more palatable to Stateside viewers. Which means doing a flawed American conception of British speech could actually be more accurate to the source material. I still don’t intentionally try to Americanize anything, but that conversation alleviated a lot of my anxiety about making mistakes, that they wouldn’t ruin it.

Excellent point. This story begins with some surprisingly gruesome violence for The Avengers, and there's more gunplay before this issue's over than usually seen on the TV version. Was that an intentional move to modernize the show, to put it more in line with what contemporary comics readers expect from the spy genre? (Or were the blood spatters more the artist's choice?)

In some ways it goes back to what we were discussing before. Some of the way the violence worked in the show, and the amount of blood present, had to do with budget. Some of it also had to do with what was standard for that era of television. The opening of “The Master Minds” episode is a good example: to have someone get shot in the head with no visible blood was a convention of TV at the time. But if you did that now, the audience would lose their suspension of disbelief. They wouldn’t buy that someone could get shot in the head without a lot of blood being involved.

Fair enough. Is this an ongoing series?

It is indeed!

Fantastic! Obviously we've seen the Hellfire Club (from "A Touch of Brimstone") return already. What about the Cybernauts? Are there any other classic villains you'd like to revisit?

I can’t say at this point, partly because I don’t want to give anything away and partly because I’m still working out what, exactly, the future holds for Steed and Peel. The Cybernauts would certainly be interesting, wouldn’t they? I think they were the show’s most-recurring villain. Am I making that up?

No, you aren't! They even popped up again in The New Avengers years later. On the subject of The New Avengers, can we expect to see any of Steed's other partners or associates turn up in the future, like Gambit and Purdey, Cathy Gale, Tara King, Venus Smith, Martin King, David Keel, Hannah Wilde, Mother, or my personal favorite, Steed's whippet Sheba?

For the time being the focus will remain on Steed and Peel. This book will be a lot of people’s first exposure to the property and we don’t want to go diving into the deep end of the mythology too soon. Part of the genius of the show was it’s modular nature. You could jump in at any point and not need a continuity handbook to get it. My aim is to preserve that instant accessibility in the comic series.

I suppose that makes sense, but I do hope we see some of those other characters sooner or later, maybe even in a spin-off if sales justify it! I've got one last question for you, Caleb. Where else can comics fans find your work? What other series do you have in the pipeline?

I also currently write the all-ages ICE AGE book [for BOOM!]. In fact, the next issue of that and STEED & MRS. PEEL #2 both come out the same day this month (Halloween!). The BATMAN 80-PAGE GIANT 2011 has a story of mine in it…you can’t imagine how fun it was to create a new Bat-villain! Other than those, I currently have four creator-owned books in the early art stages, so hopefully 2013 will be a big year!

Indeed! Well, best of luck to you on those series and especially on STEED & MRS. PEEL, which I hope goes on for a long, long run. Thanks for your time!

While the individual issues are still forthcoming (and should be bought to support this title!), Caleb's first storyline is already available to pre-order as a trade paperback, available next May. Visit Caleb's website here for future updates on STEED & MRS. PEEL!

Tradecraft: Treadstone TV Show Officially Dead

In a lengthy and very interesting interview with Deadline's Mike Fleming, The Bourne Legacy screenwriter/director Tony Gilroy confirms that the Anthony Zuiker Treadstone TV series first mooted in September of 2010 is officially dead. In fact (as speculated that November), it was a condition of Gilroy's coming aboard Legacy. I suppose he didn't want anyone else messing up the mythology he was trying hard to craft. I can understand that, but I still think it's too bad. I would have loved a weekly dose of Ludlum-style action. Anyway, this seems to set the record straight after Zuiker gave some (evidently false) hope that the project might still be percolating in December of 2010.

New 007 Book: James Bond Unmasked

This year we'll see a whole lot of new non-fiction books looking behind the scenes of the James Bond films in honor of the series 50th anniversary and to tie in with Skyfall's fall premiere. (The fall titles I'm most looking forward to thus far are Roger Moore's Bond On Bond: The Ultimate Book on 50 Years of Bond Movies, George Lazenby's autobiography, Jon Burlingame's The Music of James Bond and Jon Gilbert's authorized, exhaustive limited edition Ian Fleming bibliography.) But the floodgates have already opened! Getting a jump on the rest of the pack is film journalist Bill Desowitz's James Bond Unmasked from Spies, publisher of Charles Helfenstein's truly remarkable tome The Making of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. While there have been dozens of books on the Bond phenomenon over the years, Desowitz managed to find a fresh and potentially fascinating approach: he interviews each of the six actors to have played 007 in the official series. I can't wait to read what they have to say!

Acorn's Man in a Suitcase: Set 2 to Include Richard Bradford Interview

Great news for American ITC fans! Acorn's previously announced second set of Man in a Suitcase will include a very big bonus feature: the 69-minute interview with star Richard Bradford that first appeared on Network's Region 2 DVD release (but was not found on the Region 4 Umbrella set). Bradford, who played the cool-as-ice burned spy turned private eye McGill in the 1967-68 series, was a perfectionist and a Method actor, which brought him into conflict with some members of the cast and crew and earned him a reputation for being "difficult." In this surprisingly candid interview from 2004, he speaks frankly and openly about those on-set clashes, as well as discussing his early days studying at Lee Strasberg's famous Actors Studio, working with his friend and fellow Method actor Marlon Brando, and more. If for some reason you needed further encouragement to buy the second and final collection of this top-notch Sixties spy show, this is it!

Read my review of Acorn's Man in a Suitcase: Set 1 here.

A Rare Interview With Spy Novelist Anthony Price

The blog Existential Ennui has scored an extensive interview with cult British spy author Anthony Price, the man behind the David Audley series of novels. I'm familiar with the character only through the 1980s Granada television adaptations starring Terrance Stamp—adaptations Price makes clear in the interview that he holds in very low regard! (I rather like them, myself, but then I haven't read the books.) This interview, combined with blogger Nick Jones' other writings about Price's novels, convinced me to order Price's first book, The Labyrinth Makers, last week—and it's already arrived from England this morning! I'm looking forward to reading it. Perhaps you'll have the same reaction after reading Jones' interview—or perhaps you're already a fan of the novels, and will thus be elated to read what Jones touts as the first ever interview with Price made widely available on the web. Read Part 1 of Jones' Anthony Price interview here, and Part 2 here. Then stick around the blog and check it out; it looks like quite a cool place!

The series of books revolving around David Audley and his colleagues (beginning with The Labyrinth Makers, The Alamut Ambush and Colonel Butler's Wolf) spans almost twenty years and nearly as many books. The aforementioned TV series went by the name Chessgame on ITV, but was later cut up and bundled into three individual TV movies now available in America as budget DVDs: Cold War Killers, The Alamut Ambush and The Deadly Recruits.

Exclusive Interview With Burn Notice's Lauren Stamile

Exclusive Interview With Burn Notice's Lauren Stamile

Last week I teased a lengthy interview I conducted with the newest spy on Burn Notice, Agent Pearce herself, Lauren Stamile. As promised, here is the entire transcript of that conversation, just in time for her third appearance on the show tonight. Lauren is a friend of mine, and I was thrilled when she got this part, as Burn Notice is one of my favorite shows. I'm grateful to her for taking the time to share her experiences with spy fans on the Double O Section. Lauren and I spoke on the eve of her first appearance, right before Comic-Con, and discussed everything from working with Jeffrey Donovan to the works of spy writers like Greg Rucka and John Le Carré. One of the cool side effects of playing a CIA officer is that she's become quite a spy fan via her research reading!

00 Section: What can you tell me about Kim Pearce? [When Stamile was first announced for the role, the character's name was given as Kim Pearce.] Who is this character?

Lauren Stamile: You know what? First of all, I actually think her name is different. It's Pearce [not "Pierce"], and that's generally what people call her, is Pearce, but I believe it's Dani Pearce now. At least that's what it says on the call sheet. Nobody's ever called me by my first name; it's always Pearce. But I think it was originally Kim, and now it's been changed. I think!

00: But Pearce is what we call you.

LS: Yeah.

00: Well, who is Pearce?

LS: Ah, Pearce is a CIA agent, and she is smart, tenacious, no-nonsense when it comes to her job... but not without a sense of humor, if that makes any sense. And I believe that it's her ability to kind of balance the gravity of what she does with a little bit of levity is kind of a testament to her intelligence. She is extremely passionate, but her mind is definitely at the helm of every operation. And I would say that when we meet her, she's kind of... Michael Westen has met his match. So she kind of has the very unique challenge of needing to be two steps ahead of the man who is ten steps ahead of everybody else. Which is a great challenge.

00: Well, yeah! Definitely. So would you call her a female version of Michael Westen, to some degree?

LS: Yes! I absolutely would. I think that her... Michael is a bit of, in Pearce's eyes, is a bit of a wild card, so she... respects him. His name is infamous in her world, so she doesn't fully trust him. And as, you know, as an agent for the CIA, she doesn't really trust anybody. But I think that, in common with Michael, she has a very strong moral compass, which is challenged—obviously—being a spy, and she respects the people that employ her and the Agency that employs her, but at the end of the day she will always go with her instinct about what is right. Which I think she does have in common with Michael. Sometimes in the field, you know, what seems to be the right thing to do can kind of butt heads with, maybe... the bureaucratic machine. Unlike Michael, though, she is not a burned spy.

00: So she's not afraid to go against CIA policy if it means doing the right thing?

LS: Exactly. I think that she... She, again, she respects it, but it is always about doing the right thing. And I think that that is something that she respects—well it's probably something that, you know, frustrates her about Michael and that she respects about Michael! You know, she has these rules and she has bosses and all that stuff.  And Michael, as anybody who loves and knows the show knows, is always doing the right thing. And that's what's so remarkable about his character.

00: So is she Michael's boss? Or is she more of an equal?

LS: When she meets Michael... I don't want to give too much away! Are you caught up on the episodes this season?

00: Ah, personally, I haven't seen the very last one. [Ed: all caught up now!] But don't worry about spoiling anything for me. I'll get caught up.

LS: [laughing] I'm not gonna ruin it! I'm gonna be careful! I just wasn't sure what you'd seen. Um, when we meet Pearce—or when Michael and Pearce meet—she is heading a case that he is involved in, basically. And she has asked him to come in, and they're going to be working on it together. So they're colleagues.

00: Oh, okay. So she actually asks for him?

LS: She asks for him.

00: Well, I think that that's a neat twist. It sounds like she's something a little different from what we've seen before. Because previous characters that come in during seasons kind of give him orders rather than asking for him, and don't necessarily want to be working with him, it seems.

LS: Right. She makes it clear that it's her case, but, you know, but that she... she knows. I mean, anybody who knows who Michael is knows how good he is at what he does, so she absolutely.... While she doesn't trust him fully, she respects him.

00: Have they worked together prior to the show? Do they have a history?

LS: No, they do not have a history. She just knows what she's researched about him. And he doesn't know her.

00: So are most of your scenes with Michael? Is he your main contact? How does Pearce fit in with the rest of the gang on Burn Notice, I guess, is what I'm asking. Do you mainly hang out with Michael?

LS: I mainly hang out with Michael. I have gotten to, on occasion, hang out with almost everybody else. And I will be meeting the only character that Pearce has yet to meet, she will meet during this episode that I'm shooting now. So, it's mainly Michael.

00: In the TV movie The Fall of Sam Axe, Sam has a sort of unfortunate run-in with the CIA. Since Pearce is coming from the CIA, does she have any bad blood with Sam for that reason?

LS: No, she doesn't have any bad blood with Sam specifically. Sam's pretty hard not to like!

00: Will you talk about the kind of research that you'd done on the CIA? Well, first of all, had you ever played a spy before?

LS: No, absolutely not. And, um, I have to, I have to first of all, I have to thank you! [laughs] Because you have been my... I have been so fortunate to know you as a friend, and as a research guide!

00: [laughing] Thank you! I'm telling you, I've always wanted to get that call! "Matt, I'm playing a spy. What should I read?" Are you kidding? I live to answer that question!

LS: Kind of like the show, how the show, I think, is so interesting—the tone of the show is so interesting, because it kind of is a big mix of action, drama, comedy and heart. So I have tried to approach my research for the show kind of from several different angles. You know, non-fiction research about spies and the CIA as well as graphic novels, more serious novels, more comedic novels... it's very interesting to me because the mind of a spy is so wildly different from the mind of an actress! Um, spies don't like to call attention to themselves, and... [laughs] actors do! And I think also, just the, the kind of lonely existence is something that's kind of interesting to me. I don't think I'd be a very good spy, and so, what's been really important to me about getting into the head of a spy is... actually I've had a lot of luck reading fiction, because a lot of the spy authors have former ties to, you know, the CIA.

00: Sure, some of my favorites do!

LS: Yeah, absolutely! Or, you know, the equivalent, in other countries. And so that has been really helpful to me. As well as, I tried to, I asked myself, if a spy were researching this job, what would they do? And the first thing I did was, well, you know, if I were a spy, I would watch every single episode of this show, which I did!

00: Mm-hm. Had you seen it before?

LS: I had seen several episodes, but not in any consecutive order. So I started from the beginning, and watched everything. And I have to say, after the first episode, it just didn't seem like work anymore! I had to keep telling myself I was working, because the show was so great! So that was extremely helpful.

00: So you're a fan now.
LS: Oh yeah! For sure. There is something so fantastically irreverent about the tone of the show. Fi can be arguing with Sam about his taste in shirts while aiming her sniper rifle at the villain who is actively attempting to kill Michael. Furthermore, there is so much going on beneath every moment in Burn Notice, so rarely does a "hello" mean just that—and "Pass me the C4" can easily be code for "I love you." That is what makes the show so interesting to watch - and so challenging, fun and, quite honestly, terrifying to be a part of. It keeps me on my toes, to say the very least. And as I'm continuing to work, I'm continuing to read books, to try to keep my head in that world. Again, because it's so foreign to me.

00: Interesting. Have you taken that approach before for parts, or is this unique to being in a spy frame of mind?

LS: I'm a big researcher; I love to research. Generally, though, I don't really have the luxury of time in order to do it. In this particular case, though, I've had time, because it's a role that is ongoing, and, I think even, specific to this role, the research has been even greater. Because, like a spy, I want to leave no stones unturned! And I feel like there's only more I can keep learning.

00: Any particular books you recommend to get into that headspace?

LS: Yeah, the first one I read was Thwarting Enemies at Home and Abroad by William R. Johnson. [Ed: An essential CIA how-to manual that actually reads like one of Michael Westen's monologues!] That was the first one. And that was fantastic. After that, um, I started reading The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, and, um, have also... I've really, really, really gotten into Greg Rucka. I've read A Gentleman's Game, and I have to tell you, I'm gonna geek out for a second, but I was really upset when I finished it because I didn't have it to look forward to reading any more! And I'm reading all the Queen and Country graphic novels. I'm almost done with the second volume, and I think there are four. And then after I finish that I'm going to go and get Private Wars. I'm reading A Handbook of Practical Spying; I'm almost done with that.

00: I haven't read that one.

LS: I'm in the middle of Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy [by Lindsay Moran], which is interesting because it's kind of got a comedic side to it, which is great, but a completely different voice. So... let me see. I'm in the middle of about three right now.

00: That's a great way to stay in the spy zone! Do you find yourself getting paranoid while you're in a spy headspace all the time?

LS: Well, it is interesting, I do find myself... yeah, I do! And I've questioned everything that people tell me! I just think it's funny. You know, if people tell me something, my first question is, are they lying? Are they telling the truth? So it can make you a little neurotic!

00: Have you ever found yourself tailing someone on the street?

LS: [laughs] I have yet to do that.

00: You talk about how into the Queen and Country books you got. Do you see any similarities between Queen and Country's heroine, Tara Chace, and Pearce?

LS: I absolutely do! You know, it's very interesting... I am definitely not cool enough to be working on this show, or to be a spy! However, and that's one thing about Tara Chace. She is... I think that there are a lot of similarities between Pearce and Tara. I think that Pearce is maybe a little more, um, tightly wound. But what I think is so interesting about Tara is that she is in this man's world—or what is traditionally a man's world, I guess—but she just kicks ass anyway! That's so inspiring and so great. I think, too, looking at this project, it still is extremely intimidating to me. But when I think about Tara Chace, I think, would she be intimidated? No! So there's no place to be intimidated. It's all about being confident in what you're doing. And that, that's extremely helpful to me. Every time I start to doubt, I kind of go back to that: she wouldn't be that way; I can't be that way. If that makes any sense.

00: So she's become a personal hero to you?

LS: Absolutely.

00: You mentioned Tara kicking ass. Does Pearce kick ass? Or do you do mainly the more intellectual side of spying?

LS: Well, I have to say, most of it is intellectual, but there is one particular episode where there is some ass-kicking. And I, personally, as Lauren, am not a great ass-kicker! So I hope I pulled this off! We'll see if it actually comes across as ass-kicking, and you can let me know.

00: Did they give you a fight coach or anything?

LS: They did not, but the second I read the episode, I mean, I had to leave for Miami about two days after I got it, but I met with a kickboxing trainer, and I met with, also, a guy that teaches martial arts. I met with each of them a couple of times, and they were fantastic and, um, I just can't imagine how bad I would have been had I not met with them! [laughs]

00: They have really good editors on Burn Notice. I have a feeling you're going to look very professional!

LS: I hope so. It's something I've gotta work on, for sure!

00: Kickboxing and martial arts. What about guns? Does Pearce use guns?

LS: Yes, Pearce does use guns. And I have to say, I'm a little more confident with a gun. So that will be coming up, too.

00: Did you have any training on that?

LS: I did not, but it wasn't the first time I have had to use one. For a job.

00: "For a job." Thanks for the clarification!

LS: [laughing] Yeah, really! Absolutely.

00: I asked about the intellectual side because you had mentioned something to me early on, that one of the writers told you your part was in part inspired by George Smiley, which I found really interesting, because you're certainly not who I would picture when I think about George Smiley! So how does that figure into Pearce?
LS: Obviously Smiley in his big overcoat, and he's chubby, and he's always, he seems disheveled and not...

00: Yeah, I think Le Carré describes him as "toad-like" and he says he seems like a man who's spent a lot of money on very bad clothes.

LS: And in that way, I think physically it's a very different situation! Though I do think that vanity is not something that's part of Pearce's life. You know, I am only in the beginnings of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. John Le Carré's novels are dense and have been kind of tough for me to crack—which is definitely a sign of his creativity and intelligence and, unfortunately, I suppose, a sign of mine. [laughs] But like Smiley, Pearce has a brilliant mind and can see circumstances from so many different angles. And that mind is what enters every room first—before her choice in clothing and concern for social propriety. And her personal life... well, at this moment, it is really a non-issue—everything in her life bows in deference to her work.

00: Smiley's sort of an Everyman. He can completely blend into a crowd. He's not in any way remarkable.

LS: Absolutely. I think when you stereotypically, when you think "spy," the first thing that would come to my mind is like, you know, some seedy-looking, kind of shady person who looks suspicious, which is, you know, the worst spy in the world! You have to be as vanilla—or gray—as possible. I was reading something about how they don't even like to hire people, like women over—which would be bad for me, because I'm really tall—but they don't even like to hire women over a certain height! Or men, even. You have to be as unremarkable as possible. And that, actually, is much harder to do! Also, because the job of a spy will often require you to adopt some other persona, you know, to fit into different worlds in order to get information, you have to be, well, I guess like an actor in that way, you have to be malleable.

00: Yeah, there is certainly a connection to an actor in that respect. Definitely not in the need for attention that you talked about earlier, but in changing your personality. There's a lot of acting skills. But, you know, it's funny; what you talked about earlier, about a spy being ordinary, certainly runs counter to television casting! I am imagining that the make-up department probably isn't trying to make you look "ordinary," right?

LS: Well, I have to tell you, though, that's something that is really interesting. Especially since we shoot in Miami and there's a ton of humidity and I have really curly hair, they're going to make sure there's no frizz and, like, that my acne is covered up, but other than that, they're not trying to create some... It's not a big, makeup-y kind of situation at all. It's not a glamour thing that they're going for.

00: Not a Bond Girl kind of role.

LS: Not. At. All! There's a lot of suits. Especially when I'm working kind of behind the scenes. And I think especially because Pearce, I think, as a spy, but also as a person, is not really... She doesn't have time for that kind of stuff! You know, she's lucky if she takes a shower! (Or, she will take a shower, but that's... You know, be clean and then get work done!) Work is her main loyalty.

00: Mm-hm. So do we see a personal side of her on the show? Will we see any romantic storylines for her or anything?

LS: You know, you will find out, she's got kind of a delicate backstory, romantically, and you will find out a little bit about that, but other than that, I think, at least when we meet her, for the first several episodes, she's got a big fish to fry, and I think that her personal life is not even on her radar.

00: So what does the future hold for Pearce? Are we gonna be seeing a lot of you?

LS: Ahhhh... I don't know! I mean, I think it has yet to be determined.

00: But you're on for at least the rest of the summer season, right?

LS: Yes!

00: Well, that's exciting. So let me ask about you as an actor. Where have people seen you before?

LS: Most recently, I did a recurring role on [Season 2 of] Community, which is a comedy on NBC, and then some people may be familiar with my storyline on Grey's Anatomy. I think it was a pretty unpopular storyline. [laughs] Because I kind of came between McDreamy and Meredeth.

00: You've done that a lot! [Also on Community.] On this one you're definitely not coming between anyone?

LS: No, no, no! Definitely not! Please, please, please put that out there! When I got the wonderful call to get this job, my first question was, "Oh my God. Please tell me... please let me not be coming between Michael and Fiona, because those two are—at least their version of—happily ever after and they need to stay together!"

00: I'm glad you're not in that awkward position again.

LS: Yes. That would be very unfortunate.

00: I know you did one other show with Burn Notice creator Matt Nix...

LS: Yeah!

00: Was that how you came onto his radar?

LS: Um, I believe that's how I came onto his radar. Oh my gosh, The Good Guys! That show was so fun! Yeah, so I think that that's kind of how I came onto his radar and I am so grateful to be doing another show with him.

00: Have you worked with him directly? Is he actually on the set?

LS: I actually, I am working with him on the episode we're shooting right now. He is directing it. So I'm very fortunate.

00: What's the set like for Burn Notice? Is this a fun show, too?

LS: The set, and I would say honestly, the last time I had this much fun on a set was on The Good Guys. Which was also a Matt Nix show, like we said. The set is fantastic. It's fun, and it's extremely supportive. On the first day, Jeffrey Donovan, who plays Michael Westen (who is a rock star, like Michael Westen but minus the ego!), he came up to me and he said, "Welcome;" he said, "please remember that this is your set now, too." He just, from the beginning, that's kind of how everybody is! They're so beyond welcoming, helping me, kind of catching me up on how the world of Burn Notice works, and making me feel very at home in a city I don't live in. Like when I was watching the episodes, I keep having to tell myself I'm working, because it's so much fun it doesn't feel like it, and I keep telling myself that in some strange way, I deserve to be here, and I cannot believe that! Like I said before, I'm definitely not cool enough to be on this show, but everybody makes me feel like I am! The whole experience has been extraordinary.

00: One final thing I have to know is... do you ever get to eat yogurt with Michael Westen?

LS: I do! [laughs] Let me tell you, I have to tell you, finally, in my last episode and the episode that I'm working on now, when I saw—oh my God, I get to eat yogurt!—I think that was one of my happiest days. I felt like I was part of the club.

00: Thank you, Lauren. I can't wait to see you on the show!