Tradecraft: Brian De Palma Returns to Spying

Deadline reports that Brian De Palma has signed on to direct his first spy movie since 1996's Mission: Impossible. He'll direct The Key Man for QED International and Safehouse Pictures. We first heard a vague description of The Key Man last month when the Joby Harold-written thriller was acquired last month for domestic distribution by Open Road; today, the trade blog provides more details. Apparently, it's about "a single father who's targeted by U.S. government agents because his body contains answers to important national secrets." As previously reported, the style is said to be "a throwback to paranoid 70s movies like Three Days of the Condor and Marathon Man." Despite some really horrendous movies of late (like Snake Eyes and The Black Dahlia), I really like De Palma, and I always look forward to his next film hoping for another Femme Fatale (a vastly underrated gem) or Carlito's Way. And while I'm not a big fan of the first Mission: Impossible film, that really has nothing to do with De Palma; it's because of what screenwriters David Koepp and Robert Towne chose to do with the Jim Phelps character. The directing is top-notch, with plenty of typical De Palma nods to classic spy movies past. I'm looking forward to seeing him tackle the genre again.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Character Posters Revealed

The Imp Awards (via Dark Horizons) has revealed three new character posters for Tomas Alfredson's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I'm still partial to the Smiley one that debuted last month, but I do like the code theme. The choice of characters strikes me as odd, though, unless they're going to do one for everyone. (Ricki Tarr? Really?) But why not just do the four main suspects with the Tinker, Tailor codenames? Pictured above is the (presumably final) UK quad poster for the film.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Mrs. Pollifax—Spy

The 1971 spy caper Mrs. Pollifax—Spy, is coming to DVD at long last through MGM's MOD program, the MGM Limited Edition Collection. The film, based on Dorothy Gilman's Miss Marple-meets-James Bond books, stars Rosalind Russell as a bored widow who convinces the CIA to take her on as a secret agent. She quickly gets more excitement than she anticipated and winds up in an Albanian prison, but no Commie jail can hold this irrepressible senior citizen! Darren McGavin plays the seasoned spy who ends up working as her partner. The made-to-order DVD-R will retail for $19.95, though it can currently be pre-ordered from Amazon for just $13.99. Cover art isn't yet available, but I really hope they use that poster artwork! Like many of the titles materializing in the MGM Limited Edition Collection, Mrs. Pollifax—Spy is also available streaming on Netflix. (For now, anyway.)

Tradecraft: Fox Buys Female Spy Pilot

Deadline reports that Fox has bought a pilot pitch from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles showrunner Josh Friedman called The Asset. Okay, promising start. That's a good title for a spy series! What's it about? According to the trade blog, the hour-long action show "is described as a character-driven drama set in the New York office of the CIA, which centers on a female agent." All right... I'm positive that Friedman wouldn't just pitch Alias or Covert Affairs and that Fox wouldn't buy a direct clone of an existing show, but I do wish they would have put whatever it is that sets this one apart in its logline! Oh well. You know me. I like spy shows about female agents, so I'd give it a try even if it were a direct copy. That said, I'm pretty sick of shows set at various CIA offices in America. (The most egregious offender was Alias, in which the Agency had a sprawling Los Angeles headquarters.) While Covert Affairs found a pretty clever twist to give Annie Walker some domestic missions, the CIA's mandate is for overseas missions. For this reason (and because I prefer exotic locations to ones I see outside my window... and because the pilot script was awesome), the female spy show I'm most looking forward to right now is ABC's Missing, which takes place in Europe and was actually shot there!

Tradecraft: Brad Pit is The Gray Man

This is exciting news. I've always wanted to see Brad Pitt star in a spy franchise. He was initially rumored (and reportedly considered) for Bourne. Then Matt Damon got that, and he did Spy Game instead, which was fine (as far as I recall, anyway; it wasn't a very memorable movie), but not franchise material. Now, as proof that Jeremy Renner can't topline every spy franchise out there, Deadline reports that Pitt will star in James Gray's The Gray Man, a spy movie we first heard about last year based a novel (the first in a series, and therefore a potential film franchise) by Mark Greaney. Adam Cozad, one of the many writers to contribute to the ongoing saga of the Chris Pine Jack Ryan reboot, wrote the script. According to the trade blog, The Gray Man follows a former CIA operative who finds himself "targeted by a powerful multinational corporation" and "must fight his way across Europe and past special forces teams from around the world in order to save the life of his handler and the handler's family." The New Regency film is set to shoot in the first quarter of 2012.

DVD Review: SPIES-A-GO-GO aka THE NASTY RABBIT (1964)

DVD Review: Spies A-Go-Go aka The Nasty Rabbit (1964)

There are some spy movies even I can’t sit through. Not many, I’ll grant, but some. And this is one of them.  It doesn’t sound too bad on paper: a rock’n’roll teen spy movie from the height of the Sixties spy craze and the Sixties teen rock’n’roll craze co-starring Richard Kiel and shot by the great, Oscar-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (credited here as “William Zsigmond”).  In fact, that sounds like something that should be right up my alley. Horrible as they are, I’ve got a soft spot for some of those beach movies from the era, and there are very few Sixties spy movies I can’t find some merit in. And Richard Kiel’s always worth the price of admission even in dreck like War of the Wizards.  Even the premise sounds sort of promising, in the right hands, for the right mood, perhaps with the right substances. A Russian general on a “secret sub” (they say the words “secret sub” an awful lot) orders a disgusting spy to take a talking rabbit ashore in America and use it to release a deadly plague. Sounds like a decent enough setup for a parody called Spies A-Go-Go, right? Well, it’s not, so don’t bother to track this one down. 

No, they couldn't afford proper titles. The title is written on a sign.

And the cast names are written on cut-out rabbits.

Eat your heart out, Maurice Binder!

If you were to try to suss out a plot from the very little that takes so long to go on here, it would be that there are a bunch of spies (a midget, an aged woman who, judging from her long cigarette holder, is apparently supposed to be a va-va-voom sexpot, a Japanese guy, a Mexican, a bunch of overweight hicks in overalls and flannels and self-proclaimed teen idol Arch Hall, Jr. as a rock star FBI agent*) wandering around the must unappealing scrubland you can imagine looking for that plague-ridden rabbit. You’d think that since a submarine set the rabbit ashore, and since the movie is apparently targeted at the teen beach movie crowd, there might be some beaches. Nope. The rabbit got put ashore on barren California scrubland that not even Vilmos Zsigmond can make look remotely appealing.  (And this is the guy who shot Close Encounters of the Third Kind!)  Then again, even if you caught the landscape just right at Golden Hour, nobody could make these “actors” look good. Richard Kiel aside (that’s right; I said Richard Kiel aside!), they are seriously the most unappealing gaggle of humanity ever assembled in the 1960s, when most people in movies generally tended to be attractive. Despite Arch Hall Jr.’s clear desperation for the title, that makes Richard Kiel the stud of the bunch by default. He plays a cowboy as tangential to the alleged “plot” as anyone else onscreen, and even spends some of his time in the company of a midget. That’s a pretty classic gag (repeated decades later when the cartoon show James Bond Jr. perpetually paired Jaws with Nick Nack), and it alone should make for a watchable movie… but it does not. 

Also, the rabbit talks. But not in a mouth-moving, Cats & Dogs sort of way. Just in a zoom-in-for-a-close-up-and-a-shrill-actor’s-voice-recites-a-joke-older-than-vaudeville sort of way. After sitting through as much of it as she could stand, my girlfriend declared, “I hate that rabbit—and he’s the most appealing character!” With those words of wisdom, she left. And the Russian general, meanwhile, sits on his secret sub and eats lots of chicken and gets it all over his face, which is as gross as everything else onscreen. “How can what you’re describing equal an entire movie?” you might be asking yourself. “What else happens?” Well, because I can’t possibly describe it, I’ll show you:

Yes, it's what it looks like.

I apologize for subjecting your eyes to all this...

...but now you don't need to see the movie for yourself.

There. Now you know as much as I do. What plot can those ugly, ugly pictures possibly add up to? Whatever you guess is right, because the movie itself doesn’t spell it out any better. The term “worst movie ever made” gets thrown around an awful lot, and usually pinned on so-bad-they’re-good sorts of films, like Plan 9 From Outer Space or Robot Monster, which isn’t really fair. Because if you can sit through them (and those ones are fun to sit through), then obviously they’re not candidates for the worst movie ever made.  Spies A-Go-Go, however, is such a candidate. I defy anyone to sit through its nine-hour entirety. (Or maybe it’s only an hour and a half, but it amounts to the same thing.) I’m not saying it’s the worst movie ever made (1. Because it’s too bland as to earn any superlative, and 2. Because there’s actually been a lot of this sort of no-budget crap produced over the years), but it’s a clear candidate for the heap. Don’t see it. Don’t. Even though I said it had Richard Kiel paired with a midget, don’t see it. You won’t like it.

Spies A-Go-Go, amazingly (especially considering all the great spy movies that aren't available), is available on DVD. It’s part of a double feature disc presented by Johnny Legend, along with a movie called Prehistoric Women (not the Hammer Prehistoric Women) that neither lives up to its title nor its genre. Don’t buy it. Don’t seek it out. And if you do (which you really, really shouldn’t, no matter how determined you might be to see every Sixties spy movie)… don’t say I didn’t warn you.

*And I don’t mean “rock star FBI agent” in the modern sense, as in that he’s the best at what he does. I mean that he’s a rock star and an FBI agent. But you knew that.

New Spy DVDs Out This Week: Eurospy Mania!

It's a big day for Eurospy releases in North America!

Thrillingly (and, I have to confess, utterly unexpectedly), VCI Entertainment is releasing one of my very favorite Eurospy movies on home video in this country for the first time ever, on DVD and—amazingly—Blu-ray! Hot Enough For June, also known as Agent 8 3/4, isn't necessarily one of the best of the genre, but it's just so charming that it's one of the ones I enjoy watching the most. (Being British, it's also notable for a significantly higher budget than some of the Italian and Spanish entries.) Plus, it's got a fantastic cast. This 1964 spy parody came early in the 007-inspired wave, so it doesn't quite conform to the standard post-Goldfinger template for Eurospy adventures and still has one foot in the earlier spy cycle, but in the hands of Deadlier Than the Male's producer/director team of Betty Box and Ralph Thomas, it's all the better for that. The Sixties Spy All-Star line-up includes half of Deadlier's female duo, the sumptuous Sylva Koscina (whose glamorous looks often eclipse the fact that she's also got a wonderful light comedic touch, on full display here), Modesty Blaise scene-stealer Dirk Bogarde (one of my favorite actors) and The Prisoner's most memorable Number 2, Leo McKern. Noel Harrison (The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.), Robert Morley (Some Girls Do) and the always reliable John Le Mesurier (The Avengers, The Liquidator, The Pink Panther, etc.) lend support. The plot is simple enough: an out-of-work writer (Bogarde) gets sent on a job interview by the unemployment office that turns out to be British Intelligence's latest surreptitious recruiting effort. Unaware that he'll be acting as a courier, he jets off behind the Iron Curtain and falls in love with Koscina. It doesn't help that her father (McKern) is a bigwig in the secret police who, like everyone but Bogarde himself, realizes Bogarde is a spy. That bit about MI6 recruiting from the unemployment line is brilliant escapist fantasy (and struck a chord with me when I first saw this movie, at a time that I was collecting unemployment myself). It's a great set-up, and a really fun movie that any fan of that era's spy films should definitely see. Hot Enough For June was previously issued in a very nice Region 2 disc from Network, but this is it's inaugural Region 1 edition. The VCI release is in 1.78:1 16x9 anamorphic widescreen and includes the trailer and a photo gallery. Retail is $24.99 for the Blu-ray and $19.99 for the DVD.

Also out today, from Code Red, is a double feature of Stoney (aka The Surbaya Conspiracy) (1969) and The Killer Likes Candy (1968). Code Red already released The Killer Likes Candy a few years ago as part of their Rare Flix series, and you can read my review of that disc (and the movie) here. That version was full-frame and the print left a lot to be desired, so I would hope that the reason for this reissue is because the company's found a better—ideally widescreen—source. I can't confirm that, though; I haven't yet seen the disc. But if you don't own any version of The Killer Likes Candy yet, you'll definitely want to buy this one no matter what. It's a very fun Eurospy movie starring Kerwin Mathews in one of his post-OSS 117 "almost-OSS 117" spy roles. Honestly, I don't know anything about Stoney beyond what the company's copy says, but that copy includes the phrases "international mishmash of espionage" and "Barbara Bouchet," so I'm definitely on board! Retail for the double feature disc is just $16.98 (though DiabolikDVD has it for $13.99).

Person of Interest Extended Trailer

A Yahoo! Fall TV Preview today just called my attention to a video that's been out there since May, but I hadn't seen before. Here's an extended preview for J.J. Abrams' new CBS series Person of Interest, about an ex-CIA agent (The Prisoner's Jim Caviezel) recruited by a reclusive billionaire (Lost's Michael Emerson) to use his unique skills to wage a private war on crime, Equalizer-style. The duo are aided by access to an ECHELON-like database of all the security camera footage in New York and a computer designed to detect patterns in the footage that predict crime. If that set-up sounds familiar, you're probably recalling a similar situation from the third act of Christopher Nolan's Batman opus The Dark Knight, and that's not a coincidence. Person of Interest was written and co-produced by Jonathan Nolan (Christopher's brother), one of The Dark Knight's screenwriters. I think it looks pretty awesome, and fortunately Caviezel looks much better in this preview than he was in that laughable Prisoner remake. Person of Interest debuts Thursday, September 22 on CBS.

Tradecraft: Page Eight to Close Toronto Film Festival; Trailer Revealed

Deadline reports that David Hare's all-star BBC spy drama Page Eight (which we first heard about last November and glimpsed some footage of in May) will have its international premiere on the big screen at the Toronto Film Festival, where it will screen as the closing night gala. The festival press release offers a more in-depth plot synopsis than I've seen elsewhere:

Johnny Worricker (Bill Nighy) is a long-serving M15 officer. His boss and best friend Benedict Baron (Michael Gambon) dies suddenly, leaving behind him an inexplicable file, threatening the stability of the organization. Meanwhile, a seemingly chance encounter with Johnny's striking next-door neighbour and political activist Nancy Pierpan (Rachel Weisz) seems too good to be true. Set in London and Cambridge, Page Eight is a contemporary spy film which addresses intelligence issues and moral dilemmas peculiar to the new century. Also stars Ralph Fiennes and Judy Davis.

The film premiered in the UK in June at the Edinburgh Film Festival, garnering a review from This Is London that compared it favorably to the Gold Standard of cerebral spy TV: "Page Eight takes all the best bits from Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, cuts away the slow bits and comes up with the best cinematic exposé of how the British establishment operates since Harold Pinter collaborated with Joseph Losey on The Servant. Hare's dialogue is easily a match for Pinter's. Funnier, too." Wow! If that's even half-true, I know I'll be enthralled. That review concludes that the fact that this movie is bound for TV this fall (BBC in the UK and PBS in the US) "is a shame, since the film easily fills the big screen." The Guardian was less ecstatic, but still echoed that sentiment: "No doubt it will suit the small screen well, but it holds its own in the cinema, with a classy, stately feel to its photography, and nicely judged performances from the leads."

Here's the full teaser:

Hey! There's Another Jason Statham Action Movie Coming Out This Fall!

One thing I just love about Jason Statham is that his movies come out of nowhere with such reliable frequency. He got me with the old magician’s trick. I was so busy watching what his left hand was doing (starring in Blitz, direct to DVD and Blu-ray this month, and Killer Elite, in theaters in September) that I didn’t even notice what his right hand was doing (starring in Safe, apparently in theaters this October)! Until the Lionsgate publicist just sent me this poster (which just debuted on IGN) with this description: “Statham portrays a former elite operative [we'll assume that means some sort of spy] who must protect an adolescent girl (played by Catherine Chan) from the bad guys.” Yep, that sounds about right. In fact, it sounds so right that I don’t even know why they bothered to say it, because if they hadn’t given a description, I would have automatically assumed that Jason Statham was a former elite operative protecting someone—presumably an adolescent girl—from “the bad guys.” And I wouldn't have defined "the bad guys" any more than that, either. And that’s just fine with me. Also, I would have assumed that James Hong was in the movie as well, and guess what? He is! So is Chris Sarandon. (I gotta be honest; I wouldn't have automatically assumed that one, but it does stand to reason.)

So now we have not one, but two movies to look forward to this fall in which Statham plays a former elite operative—and within a month of each other! How awesome is that? Furthermore, a quick check of his IMDb page shows that he’s already got three on tap for 2012. Bliss! Statham's Safe (no relation to the 1995 Todd Haynes movie, I'm guessing) comes out October 28, 2011, a mere month after Killer Elite.

(Oh, and lest you worry that old Jason's going soft on us and pulling a Pacifier or something, the IMDb also dispels any such notions with the assurance that Safe is "Rated R for strong violence throughout, and for language. So this isn't one of those kiddie pics about elite operatives protecting kids...)

Tradecraft: Austin Powers Rumors Resurface

Every couple of years, the rumor mill spits out another Austin Powers sequel possibility. The latest one popped up yesterday, originating on the website Hitfix, which reported that Mike Myers had just closed a deal to resurrect the moribund shagadelic spy. The Hollywood Reporter then confirmed that Myers is "expected to close a deal" soon, adding that the actor would "write, produce and star in a fourth film," then hedging its bets by saying that "sources caution that no deal has closed." Deadline's Mike Fleming went even further with the denials,  stressing that "no deal has yet been signed, and top New Line brass are surprised the whole thing has reared up after they made Myers an offer six months to a year ago, and [heard] nothing." Fleming rehashes the potential story that popped up in 2007 and 2008 rumors about a movie focusing on Dr. Evil and his relationship with his son, Scott, but says that it's unclear whether that's still the concept if things move forward now. While Myers co-wrote the first three films with Mike McCullers, it's currently unclear (according to the trade blog) whether either he or director Jay Roach would be involved. Myers might work with a new collaborator. The whole thing even happening at all still depends on a deal being worked out between Myers and New Line, and apparently the two camps are far from in agreement on what that deal should be. So the upshot of all this? Maybe there will be another Austin Powers movie...

Official: Spooks (AKA MI-5) is Ending

Confirming what was first hinted at in a May press release for the American release of the Volume 9 DVDs, the BBC has confirmed that Spooks (known in America as MI-5) is indeed coming to an end after ten seasons. The Guardian reports that the decision to end the popular long-running spy drama comes from the show's producers at Kudos, and not from the network. They say they wanted to see it go out "in its prime" rather than see it cancelled by the BBC down the line. Whether or not it's actually still "in its prime" is a matter for fans to debate, but the series has seen amazing longevity thanks to the producers' ability to reinvent it again and again with a constantly changing cast. (I don't think I've ever seen another spy show kill off as many lead characters, a fact that kept the series unpredictable, since viewers knew no one was ever safe.) According to the newspaper, the 10th and final season will focus on Peter Firth's character, Harry Pearce (the head of counter-terrorism at MI-5) which is entirely appropriate as Harry is the only remaining character who's been on the show consistently since Season 1 and thus its de facto true lead. While it's had its ups and downs, I've really enjoyed Spooks overall, and I will be sad to see it go... but I agree with Kudos that it can't run forever. I look forward to seeing how they wrap it all up. I hope that some of the few past stars who actually survived will return! (Most of all I'd like to see Harry Pearce go another round with Hugh Laurie's condescending MI-6 man from Season 1, Jules Siviter. That seems unlikely, however, given Laurie's House commitments.)
Thanks to The Harry Palmer Movie Site's Kees Stam for the alert on this one!

Read my review of MI-5: Volume 1
Read my review of MI-5: Volume 2

Read my review of MI-5: Volume 3

Read my review of MI-5: Volume 4
Read my review of MI-5: Volume 5

You'd Never Know That Guy Was a Spy...

The Internet's gone crazy today about a fascinating exhibition of photos from the archives of the notorious East German spy agency, the Stasi. There's a good slideshow at Yahoo! News displaying a number of pictures demonstrating disguise techniques, used in Stasi training. Seen today in this perspective, they're honestly pretty hilarious. Somehow the guy in the pictures manages to look like a stereotypical spy in every single shot, whether he's posing as a tourist, a businessman or a proto-hipster. But Simon Menner, the artist who compiled these images, cautions against that reaction: "Many of these images might appear absurd or even funny," he writes in comments accompanying a wider assortment of the collection on the photo blog Conscientious Extended. "But it is very important to understand the intention behind them. It was a extremely repressive system that caused terror through its secret service. There is also something in these images that really frightens me." It's true. When you start putting yourself in Alec Leamas' shoes and imagining life in East Germany under constant surveillance, these silly photos suddenly take on new, harrowing dimensions. According to the MSNBC PhotoBlog, the photographs are currently on display at  the Morgen Contemporary in Berlin through August 20. If you can't get to Germany at the moment, however, you can check out the disguise pictures at Yahoo! and others, including some very interesting blurry surveillance photos of suspected Western agents taking their own photos (thus representing spies spying on spies who spy on spies, recalling the tagline of that Peter Fleming novel, The Sixth Column), at Conscientous Extended.

Tradecraft: A New Twist on Hitchcock - The Kid Who Knew Too Much

According to a Deadline article about a new HBO comedy from writer Bryan Sipe, "Sipe has [also] signed on to do a re-write on the Parkes/MacDonald-produced feature The Kid Who Knew Too Much for Paramount, a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1934 and 1956 movies." As the title clearly indicates, this is a remake of the film that Hitch himself remade (and preferred the remake), only focusing on a kid. In the original(s), a vacationing couple has their son kidnapped to prevent them from talking when they unwittingly stumble upon some intelligence about an upcoming assassination attempt. The father then tracks down clues to save his son. A February story on /film confirms that in the new version, instead of a couple desperately searching for their missing child, we’ll see "a kid looking for his stolen parents." I think that's a sound premise—and one so obvious I can't believe we haven't seen it sooner. Paramount is sort of carving a niche for themselves by remaking Hitchcock movies with a kid focus. (2007's Disturbia was a teen version of Rear Window.) It's unclear from either story how old the protagonist will be, but personally I'd prefer to see a slightly grittier film about a teen rather than a Cody Banks-type fantasy about a younger child. According to the /film article, Fair Game writers John and Jez Butterworth penned the first draft of this.

DVD Review: Code of the Secret Service (1939)

DVD Review: Code of the Secret Service (1939)

It turns out George H. W. Bush was not the only former spook on the Republican ticket in 1980 and 1984. Bush may have run the CIA, but his running mate Ronald Reagan was actually a field man… in a series of four Warner Bros. B-programmers made between 1939 and 1940. Long before working for the government for real, Reagan played Brass Bancroft of the Secret Service, a square-jawed agent who pursued spies, counterfeiters and other threats to national security in exploits supposedly “based upon material compiled by W.H. Moran, ex-chief of the U.S. Secret Service”—at least according to the credits. The first Brass Bancroft movie, Code of the Secret Service, actually offers all the elements of a classic spy movie… on a poverty row budget, and packed into 60 minutes! All you’d need to add is color and booze and it could pass itself as a Eurospy movie. In one of many sequences audiences would come to associate with the genre two decades later, Bancroft’s adventure begins when he meets his boss at HQ to receive his assignment. Brass is far too wholesome, however, to engage in any flirtation with the pretty secretary. That sort of behavior is reserved for the comic relief sidekick, Gabby (Eddie Foy, Jr.).

The mission, to take down a counterfeiting gang flooding the US with their phony currency from South of the Border, takes Brass and Gabby all the way across America, from Washington D.C. to a Southwest border town, as an animated line on an Indiana Jones-style map superimposed over an airplane traces their route. Like any good agent in decades to come, Brass hits up a nightclub for his first clue—a disreputable establishment across the border, in Mexico. There (still strictly following a formula that technically hasn’t even been established yet), he naturally gets into a fight. His contact is killed—and the bad guys frame Brass for the murder.  Soon the Mexican authorities are after him in force, but instead of running for the border, Brass escapes by heading deeper into Mexico.

Quickly fulfilling another spy movie expectation (one already firmly in place in 1939), Brass soon enough finds himself embroiled in intrigue on a train as he tries to follow one of the villains back to his secret hideout. After some lame Thirties and Forties comedy bits from the faux-Mexican train conductor fall flat, the bad guy spots Brass on his tail and tips off the police that he’s on the train. This leads to a pretty great stunt for this kind of micro-budget programmer: as the train stops on a bridge and the police drive him to the caboose in a car-by-car sweep, Brass makes a daring and thrilling escape by diving off the high bridge into the water far below! (It's achieved more through clever editing than actual stunt work, but I still found it impressive.) There, he hides underwater using a reed to breath (as James Bond would one day do in Dr. No) as the police pursue him through a swamp. 

Of course, Code of the Secret Service can’t expend the entirety of its brief running time prefiguring Sixties spy movies. After all, Forties spy actioners have their own set of clichés to deliver, every bit as predictable as those in the Eurospies. For instance, when Gabby presents Brass with a book, Spanish in 7 Days, you just know he’ll put it in his breast pocket and it will stop a bullet… which, indeed, it dutifully does! (Though it doesn’t keep him from getting captured.) What I didn’t see coming, however, is that when Gabby tries to find a way to get Brass out of jail, he instead manage to get himself arrested for indecent exposure. Yes, things get very silly very quickly.

Brass does manage to escape, of course, and quickly finds himself on the run again, now handcuffed to a beautiful and innocent woman, Elaine (Rosella Towne). Yep, someone’s been watching Hitchcock! The plot in fact follows The 39 Steps pretty closely from there on, complete with the two of them being hauled off in a car by fake police who are really working for the enemy. The enemy in question, however, can be identified by his peg-leg instead of his missing finger. See what they did there? 

Eventually, Brass gets into more of an Indiana Jones kind of outfit with a leather jacket and puffy breeches he could have stolen from Katherine Hepburn. In this suitable attire, he’s able engage in some fisticuffs, cause—and escape from—some explosions, and even participate in a pretty good car chase which ends in a big wreck stunt! (Surely this footage is reused from something else, but I can’t identify the source.) Belying its immediately pre-war genesis, the movie concludes with a patriotic quote akin to the propaganda at the end of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies of the era, spoken over a waving American flag. It’s a fitting finale for a spy movie starring a future US president! Code of the Secret Service is predictable, cheap and cheesy—but quite a lot of fun for fans of the low budget films of that period. I’m hopeful that all the Brass Bancroft movies prove as entertaining. All four are collected in the 2-disc Warner Archive MOD DVD-R collection Brass Bancroft of the Secret Service (currently on sale for just $14.98 on Oldies.com—45% off!), and the audio and video quality are impressive, as with nearly all the Archive titles I’ve seen. With this sort of movie, if the picture is soft, it's more likely because the shot's out of focus than anything to do with the transfer!

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Le Carré Classics Reissued - UPDATED

Eagle-eyed spy spotters may have noticed lately that the masterful 1979 miniseries version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, starring Alec Guinness as George Smiley, has gone out of print in the United States. That's because Acorn plans to re-release the DVD this fall to coincide with Tomas Alfredson's new movie version starring Gary Oldman as Smiley. They'll also reissue the follow-up miniseries, Smiley's People (1982), at the same time. There are no further details available yet, so I'm not sure if this re-release will be the complete, uncut, 7-episode UK version of Tinker, Tailor[No], or the shorter 6-part US version that was available on Acorn's last Region 1 DVD set [Yes]. I'm also not sure if these two miniseries will be issued separately or together. But I'll post more details as soon as I get them! (Who knows? Maybe they'll even do them on Blu-ray... [No such luck.])

UPDATE: Acorn has confirmed that these are separate releases and the same editions that were available before with the same cuts (US versions, each 6 episodes and approximately 324 minutes), the same special features and even the same cover art, but "repriced and re-released in more compact packaging." Retail is $49.99 each, but you should be able to find them much cheaper than that on Amazon and other online retailers this fall. These two repackaged series hit shelves on October 25.

Moneypenny Lives!
The Moneypenny Diaries See New Life as Audio Books

The Book Bond reports that Samantha Weinberg's trilogy of Moneypenny Diaries, my favorite James Bond continuation novels of the past decade, will see new life as audio books from Chivers. Normally I don't concern myself too much with audio books (how many different versions of the Fleming books have there been over the years?), but this announcement particularly excites me because I feel like The Moneypenny Diaries series has been unfairly marginalized. The three novels by Weinberg, writing under the pen name of Kate Westbrook, came out in 2005, 2006 and 2008. The concept of spin-off books told in a diary format and focusing on Moneypenny, a relatively minor character in Ian Fleming's stories, seemed off-putting to some Bond fans. Yet against all odds, Ms. Weinberg not only pulled off the questionable premise, but ended up penning three of the very best Bond continuation novels ever written.

Unfortunately, this series was the rare instance of the current incarnation of Ian Fleming Publications really dropping the ball publicity-wise. On top of a misleading cover that made it look like chick-lit, the first novel, Guardian Angel, was initially marketed with a ludicrous ploy that asked readers to believe that these books were non-fiction, a "true" account of James Bond's MI6 of the 1960s told from the point of view of a real-life figure. The half-baked scheme failed spectacularly, and most major media outlets ignored such an obvious hoax altogether and failed to review these truly excellent books. (The only blurb they ever got was "Thrilling!" from former Bond Girl Joanna Lumley, which was repeated on each cover.) Sales suffered as a result, and the second two books never even saw publication in America. IFP never did anything to correct their initial misstep, and instead moved onto other projects like Sebastian Faulks' risible Centenary novel Devil May Care, which sadly overshadowed the final Moneypenny Diary, Final Fling.

So I'm very happy to see any movement on The Moneypenny Diaries, and these new audio books indicate that publishers haven't abandoned them altogether, which is a very good sign. I sincerely hope that they find a new audience on this format, and that it leads to further exposure. I would absolutely love to see a bumper edition come out in the US collecting all three in one volume (along with the two never-collected short stories), like the two Raymond Benson omnibi released by Pegasus Books. (Pegasus is also putting out the individual John Gardner reprints this fall. Come on, Pegasus; take a look at Moneypenny!) Here's hoping. At any rate, if you're a Bond fan and you haven't yet checked out these books, make every effort to do so, in whatever format is most conveniently available to you. They're a far superior take on a Sixties-set companion to Fleming's Bond books to Devil May Care, and the qualify as genuine James Bond novels despite the different point of view.

The new audio books are read by actress Eleanor Bron, no doubt most familiar to Sixties spy fans from the Beatles' spy spoof Help! I'm sure Bron does a terrific job, though part of me can't help but think it was a missed opportunity not hiring Samantha Bond, the Pierce Brosnan-era Moneypenny. (Lois Maxwell obviously would have been the best choice, but sadly she passed away the same year that the first volume saw print.) All three titles are available for purchase from AudioGo at £22.50 a pop for the unabridged, 8-disc sets.

Read my extensive interview with Samantha Weinberg here.
Read my interview with Moneypenny Diaries cover artist Stina Persson here.
Read my review of The Moneypenny Diaries: Secret Servant 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.

Tradecraft: Mike Hammer Hunts Bourne

Actually, there's no truth to that headline, but it got your attention, right? Variety reports that Stacy Keach (Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer himself) has joined the cast of Tony Gilroy's The Bourne Legacy. The trade, however, offers no details on what sort of part he'll play. It's my own conclusion that he'll probably be hunting the main character (isn't that what everybody else is always doing in these movies?), but since that character is not Matt Damon's Jason Bourne, but another assassin from the Treadstone program played by Jeremy Renner, he won't be hunting Bourne. Still, it's cool casting, right? Keach joins an eclectic cast including the returning Joan Allen and Albert Finney and newcomers Edward Norton, Rachel Weisz and Oscar Isaac.

New Spy DVDs Out Last Week

Once again, I'm running a week behind. (And now even more behind, since I started writing this article on Tuesday.) But that's okay, because as far as I know there's only one major spy releases out this week. Looking back to last week, however, we have a couple of big TV releases to talk about. But first, that one out today...

A Dandy in Aspic makes its Region 1 debut as an MOD title from Sony's Columbia Screen Classics by Request line. It's been available on a Region 2 DVD for some time, but since a regular North American DVD release never materialized, I'm not at all surprised to see it show up as an MOD title, following in the footsteps of The Deadly Affair. Actually, Columbia has been quite good about mining their spy titles for MOD! A Dandy in Aspic is kind of a tough nut to crack. It's got a brilliant premise... but I'm not convinced the movie totally pulls it off. (I've really got to read the book on of these days.) Maybe that's just because I've never warmed to Laurence Harvey as a leading man. I do like Tom Courtenay, however, but never found this to be one of his better spy roles. (His best is in Otley, which just so happens to also be available as a Columbia MOD disc!) At any rate, it's still got all the skulduggery one could ask for against some great Sixties European backdrops, so I think I'll celebrate this release by re-watching my R2 copy at least... Columbia's list price is $26.99, but it's available cheaper than that on Oldies.com and DeepDiscount.

Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe hit shelves last week on both DVD and Blu-ray, courtesy of Fox Home Entertainment. The first Burn Notice TV movie spin-off is a prequel starring Bruce Campbell that depicts Sam's final mission as a Navy SEAL prior to the events of the show.  As we've seen already this season, some of the events portrayed here (involving a pair of CIA agents Sam gets the better of) have already come back to bite Sam in the ass. Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe marks the first high-def Burn Notice release since Season Two of the show, which was poorly received on BD. This one should boast a much better transfer, as it was shot in HD. Both the BD and the DVD contain an extended cut of the telefilm running 108 minutes (instead of 89) and including scenes not seen on the USA television broadcast this past spring.  Extras include an audio commentary with Campbell, Jeffrey Donovan (the star of Burn Notice who directed this spin-off--and makes a cameo) and series creator/spin-off writer Matt Nix, a featurette called "The Fall of Jeffrey Donovan" (a tongue-in-cheek "Hearts of Darkness" style portrait of Donovan the director going mad in the jungle, which was unveiled at this year's Comic-Con), "Burn Notice at Comic-Con," the 2010 panel (which I'd expected to turn up on the Season Four DVDs), two deleted scenes and a gag reel. Obviously, this is a must-buy for Burn Notice fans and Campbell fans! Retail is$19.98 for the DVD and $24.99 for the Blu-ray; both are currently available cheaper on Amazon.

Wish Me Luck: Series 3 also saw release last week from Acorn, thus completing the DVD collection of this 1987-90 WWII spy show. Wish Me Luck follows the fact-based exploits of female agents of Britain's SOE behind enemy lines in occupied France. The final season sees the team assigned a crucial mission to pave the way for the D-Day invasion. Meanwhile, Jane Asher's Faith Ashley has replaced Julian Glover as the head of the team's London office, and begins her tenure by recruiting two new agents to man a Resistance stronghold in the French Alps, which provide a spectacular scenic backdrop as the suspense builds toward an emotional, action-packed finale. Retail for the 2-disc set is $39.99, though of course it's available for less than that on Amazon.

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!