Sometimes learning what you dislike is as important as figuring out what you like.
That was the experience of actress Jodie Turner-Smith (“Bad Monkey”) when she studied finance at the University of Pittsburgh.
A native of England who emigrated to suburban Washington, D.C., as a child, Turner-Smith graduated from Pitt in 2008. She stayed in Pittsburgh, working for PNC Bank, but found it didn’t suit her.
“When I was studying finance, and even when I started working as a corporate banker, I just noticed that some people did enjoy it, and I didn’t,” Turner-Smith said Monday during a virtual news conference for Paramount ’s “The Agency.” “What it awoke in me was the desire to find something that I enjoyed. Because when you spend 75% of your life working, I think that it’s important that you love and believe in what you’re doing. Otherwise, you’re gonna be bitter and bored and unhappy.”
A friend working backstage at a N.E.R.D. show in Pittsburgh introduced Turner-Smith to Pharrell Williams, who offered Turner-Smith her first industry contact. From there, she was on her way, moving to Hollywood and working in music videos before breaking into acting with a role in “True Blood” in 2013. She appeared in 20 episodes of TNT’s “The Last Ship” in 2017-18 and had a leading role in the 2019 film “Queen Slim.”
This weekend, she returns in Season 2 of “The Agency,” which streams all 10 episodes Sunday.
A smart, tension-filled spy thriller, Season 1 of “The Agency” ended with London-based, American CIA agent Martian (Michael Fassbender) agreeing to be a double-agent for the British in exchange for their help in getting his love interest, social anthropology professor Samia Zahir (Turner-Smith), out of a Sudanese prison.
Martian’s treachery only deepens in Season 2 as he begins sharing information with the Brits, including a big-footing boss man played by Hugh Bonneville (“Downton Abbey”). Martian even offers intel from an American asset in Iran, another of the plots in “The Agency’s” serialized story. A new, third story thread introduces a radicalized former U.S. Marine who’s beheading American assets in Africa.
“What (showrunners) Jez and John-Henry Butterworth delivered on those scripts was that the pace would just take us from the first episode in Season 2 all the way to the end of Season 2,” Fassbender said in his virtual news conference Monday. “It doesn’t really let up from the energy that it left in the last couple of episodes in Season 1. It carries that sort of anxiety all the way to the last episode in Season 2.”
Still, it’s a significant change to watch Martian operate after he’s made the choice to betray his country for the sake of the woman he loves.
“He becomes more reckless in this second season out of necessity, really,” Fassbender said. “I liked the idea of playing with what sort of mental state he was in. Is he losing his mind? It is that idea of genius and insanity being bedfellows, and I wanted to play around with that a little bit. Because, in the end, you realize he’s still three, four moves ahead. But I like playing with that with the audience as well, whether they’re wondering has he gone off the deep end?”
For Turner-Smith, playing an imprisoned Samia in Season 2 proved cleansing in its own way.
“As we get older and as more things happen to us in life, our experience of grief or disappointment or heartache, love — these things deepen our understanding,” said Turner-Smith, who divorced actor Joshua Jackson (“Dawson’s Creek”) last year. “I definitely was able to channel things that have come to me from the wisdom of human experience into this. In a way, it became cathartic, because instead of having to dig and find these (feelings) from a place that didn’t exist, I felt like I’ve been experiencing so much in my life as of late, (and) that just allowed me to have somewhere to draw from. So, if anything, it was a healthy way to exercise some of the things I was feeling.”
Even though that Pitt finance degree didn’t lead to the ideal career choice for Turner-Smith, she still finds it a useful background as an actor.
“In our profession, any skill that you acquire, any information, any knowledge can be useful to you in this job. Because we’re playing humans,” she said. “People can have any kind of job, any kind of expertise, and so all of that adds to things.”
Kept/canceled/ordered
Apple TV renewed “Widow’s Bay” for a second season.
Hulu’s “Rivals” will return for a third season; additional Season 2 episodes will stream in November.
Netflix renewed “Devil May Cry” for a third and final season and will bring back “House of Guinness” for a second season and “The Four Seasons” for a third season.
Amazon’s Prime Video is developing “The Boyfriend,” a follow-up with all-new characters to last year’s “The Girlfriend.”
Netflix is looking to turn the Glen Powell indie movie “Hit Man” into a streaming series.
National Geographic Channel will spin off “Tucci in Italy” with a new series, “Tucci in Great Britain,” per The Hollywood Reporter.
Netflix reality dating series “The Circle” will relocate to Hulu, per RealityBlurred.com.
There will be no new Doctor Who Christmas special this year as showrunner Russell T. Davies exits the series and the BBC looks for a new showrunner. Deadline.com reports the earliest the show might return with new episodes is 2028.