'Berlin Station' Star Leland Orser Talks Battling Russian Threats in Season 3 (VIDEO)

Jim Halterman November 30, 2018 1:00 pm


Those wacky spies are back!

The team managing the Berlin CIA station in Germany's capital is back on Sunday as EPIX's drama, Berlin Station, kicks off season three. A year has passed on the show and when we revisit our favorite group of intrepid spies (and those who manage them), there's more trouble ahead like Russian threats, vulnerable NATO allies and the estimable James Cromwell as new character Gilbert Dorn, a onetime CIA legend with loose lips.

What did you think of the season finale? We've got the scoop on everything that went down.

Here are a few things to know to catch you up on where we left things in the season finale:

AGENT IN CHARGE

Stoic station chief BB Yates (Ashley Judd) was relieved of her duties after ignoring protocol (albeit for the good of the team). Tough administrator Valerie Edwards (Michelle Forbes) has stepped up while still mentoring green case officer April Lewis (Keke Palmer), who will get her share of the action this season.

RIP, HECTOR?

Colorful ex-agent Hector DeJean (Rhys Ifans) seemingly took a fatal bullet before authorities could nab him as a suspected political assassin, but it turns out his death was a ruse. He loves assuming new identities, so don't be surprised if he pops up as someone completely different.

SPY GAMES

Deputy chief Robert Kirsch (Leland Orser) and Yates had a fling last season. She’ll eventually be back in a new capacity, and he’ll be busy reining in reckless new agent Rafael Torres (Ismael Cruz Córdova) — see the exclusive clip featuring the new face to the show below. Brainy agent Daniel Miller (Richard Armitage, left) and crafty German Esther Krug (Mina Tander) also juggled work and play — and that won’t stop!

Need more intel? TV Insider recently sat down with Orser to get his take on where Kirsch is this season and what's different in terms of fresh faces and, for the show, a new showrunner. (You can also watch the season 3 premiere for free now on the EPIX website)

How is Kirsch doing in the new season? I won’t spoil it but his first line this season is just so fantastic.

Leland Orser: The big, big thing with Robert Kirsch this season is trust. Who does he trust and who trusts him? Who doesn't he trust? Who's he right about, and who's he wrong about in putting his trust in.

Is this based on Season 2 stuff or is there more coming that will shake his trust in those around him?

There's the whole Valerie-Robert trust thing. There's the BB-Robert trust thing and then there's there the Torres-Kirsch trust thing. What's really interesting is the arc of that relationship and how they come to terms and how they come to rely on each other. At one point, I say “you stick to being the action hero. I'm the analyst," and then that flips later in the season.

So we get to see Kirsch do some badass moves?

Yes! But Robert makes a lot of mistakes this season. This season is a spiral, a descent for him into a bad dark place. He makes decisions and the repercussions based on those decisions are not good ones. He has to stand behind them, and fix them and deal with the consequences.

That must’ve been fun to play.

It was. It was dark. It was hard. It was dark and sad and filled with a lot of doubt. It brings out the worst in him, his obsessive behavior, his complete dedication to his work and then the rug is pulled out from under him and he starts to question himself and question it all.

Who is he leaning on through a lot of this?

It becomes Torres and April. It's interesting that Robert ends up being buttressed by the younger members of the team.

Last season we were able to see Kirsch with his son, Noah (Brandon Spink). Any more of that this season?

Noah stays back in the states but he's present in everything. It's another thing that Robert comes to terms with is that he's a better deputy chief, a better employee of the CIA, better spy than he is a father. He comes to terms with it and accepts that and has regret but functional regret. He's there to get the job done.

How's Robert's relationship with Valerie since she's running the show? I'm sure he's reporting to her in that, but how's their relationship?

It's solid. I think he's really good with her being the head of the station. Robert's in the field this year and he takes orders from her, he reports back to her, he doesn't argue with her. There's one point where they have a conversation about things that happened last season, but it's really no nonsense, right down to business.

Since you're out in the field a lot more, did you like that you weren't constantly in just a suit and tie?

I like wearing the suit and tie but I'm a little hipper this year. Later this season, I have a really good-looking outfit right off the pages of Mr. Porter. Some well-fitted pants and a nice deconstructed jacket and no tie. Plus, I'm next to Ismael (Torres) and it's tough to hold your own next to Ishmael. He's like buff and ripped, and wearing fatigues. He looks good in anything.

Ismael Cruz Cordova is a great addition as Torres. Who else?

We have James Cromwell. The two of them — Richard Jenkins and James Cromwell — do a lot together. They’d get rounds of applause from the crew. How frequently do you see two actors of there level together, acting together?

I love in the first episode there’s a scene with pretty much everyone celebrating the Fourth of July. We don’t get to see those moments too often.

There's a lightness to that scene and we make a toast to America and to family. That's really the last moment in this season that will feel like that. It goes dark fast, and the s**t hits the fan fast. They've also gone tighter with the camera this year. The camera is more part of the action instead of observing of the action.

And you have a new showrunner in Jason Horwitch (House of Cards, Rubicon). How’s that been?

He's an incredible collaborator — as were the other showrunners — but he jumped right in and captained the ship immediately. He took the performances and the storylines that we had done in the first two seasons and he went back in time before those storylines and then he built on what had been presented. It was seamless. It was like he had been a part of it all along.

BERLIN STATION: Actor Leland Orser gives the scoop on Season 3 – exclusive interview
The actor discusses the EPIX spy series

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer
Posted: December 3rd, 2018 / 10:12 PM

In Season 3 of BERLIN STATION, which begins Sunday December 2 on Epix, it’s six months after the events of Season 2. The Berlin station of the CIA sends two of its officers, Leland Orser’s Robert Kirsch and Richard Armitage’s Daniel Miller, to Estonia for a bit of diplomacy. Things take some drastic turns, and before you can say “Ukraine,” it looks like there may be open war between Russia and Estonia.

Orser, who has played Kirsch since BERLIN STATION began, is a native of San Francisco. His other credits include RAY DONOVAN, SE7EN, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, INDEPENDENCE DAY, ER, 24 and all three TAKEN movies.

Speaking by phone, Orser reveals what he can about BERLIN STATION’s third season, as well as his memorable canoeing sequences with Richard Jenkins (who plays former station chief Steven Frost) in Season 2.

ASSIGNMENT X: Season 3 of BERLIN STATION seems like it’s going to be very timely, given the rising tensions between Russia and the Ukraine again …

LELAND ORSER: You look at the headlines every morning. All of us [working on BERLIN STATION] are texting each other these headlines every morning, going, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” I was in the ADR [automated dialogue replacement] studio the other day, and I was literally saying words that I had heard on CNN that morning. [In real life], you’ve got the Ukraine naval clash with Russia. You’ve got [real-life CIA director] Gina Haspel not being allowed to testify on the [journalist Jamal] Khashoggi murder, just two examples of things that we’re going to be talking about, and portraying fictionally, this season.

AX: In the series, the CIA Berlin station is continually being stymied by forces in Washington, D.C. Do you think the real-world situation right now regarding the relationship between the CIA and the White House gives BERLIN STATION an added layer of verisimilitude?

ORSER: I’m afraid so. I’m thinking about how to phrase this, the best way to phrase this without pointing fingers. The CIA’s job is to find the truth and deliver it to the White House. How does that job change in a post-truth/alternative facts/fake news world? It makes their job much harder. It makes them have to work that much harder. They are more than ever on their own.

AX: Have you done any more research for this season of BERLIN STATION into the politics of Estonia, or anything else involving spy-craft or …?

ORSER: We never stop that. We had a wonderful new consultant on the show this season. We never stop learning, reaching out. I now have friends in the CIA, and friends who used to be in the CIA. We never stop talking, digging, trying to figure out ways to make the characters better and to make the stories better. And that was the exciting thing about our new collaborator, Jason Horwitch, who came on to be the head writer and show runner. All he wants is for the stories to be great and real and to be accurate, and he essentially picks up where we left off last season, takes us ahead a few months, and then hits the ground running. He really made the show his own and tells this wonderful story that starts out small and ends up being monstrously big. He wrote a series called RUBICON. He came to us directly from HOUSE OF CARDS, and we’re incredibly lucky to have him. Many people wanted the job. He rightfully won it and has done a hell of a job with it.

AX: Is production for BERLIN STATION still physically based on Berlin for Season 3?

ORSER: The production is still based in Berlin. We shot a lot of it in Budapest, because the storyline takes us to that part of Europe. So we set up camp for a good portion of this season in Budapest, which was closer to the countries that we deal with in the storyline.

AX: So you had Budapest standing in for Estonia?

ORSER: No, we actually went to north [of Budapest] for that, to a little town called Sopron. I know they definitely did shoot in Estonia. But whatever we could do and control, we shot in the north of Hungary.

AX: Last season, you and Richard Jenkins spent part of an episode in a canoe because your characters were fleeing an assassin and it was the only means of escape …

ORSER: Classic.

AX: How was that to film?

ORSER: What more could you want out of life than to be in a canoe with Richard Jenkins in a fjord outside of Bergen, Norway, in the pouring rain?

AX: Were you expecting pouring rain? Had you ever been canoeing before? Had Richard Jenkins ever been canoeing before?

ORSER: Apparently, he’s a big canoe-er. I was not. But we each only had one paddle. And yes, I think it rains three hundred and sixty-four out of three hundred and sixty-five days up there [laughs]. Nobody bothered to tell us that, and we were dressed in suits and ties. However, that being said, it was one of the more spectacular, exhilarating, beautiful experiences of life, being on the water in the fjords. It was just extraordinary beauty. Waterfalls would just show up after a downpour, and the wildlife you would see, and being that close to it, and being a part of it, it made you feel very, very small, but also part of the world, the universe, nature. It was epic.

AX: Did you have a rescue boat nearby in case the canoe capsized?

ORSER: Yes. There were lots of boats that you didn’t see on camera. But the other thing is, we would sneak off on our own, in between, while they were reloading the camera, and we would zip off to little coves and inlets and snoop around. We really had a terrific time that day. That was really incredible.

AX: Was that one of the more unexpected things you’ve gotten to do in playing Robert?

ORSER: A hundred percent. And one of the unexpected treats of this season was going down into the sewers and tunnels underneath Vienna. We shoot an entire episode in Vienna, and so we’re down, walking the same paths that Orson Welles did in THE THIRD MAN, and that was really incredible.

AX: Did they clean out a section of the sewer for the BERLIN STATION production, or how did that work, so you didn’t risk getting some sort of terrible bacteria?

ORSER: We had helmets, we had face masks, we had gloves, we had paramedics, we had whatever the Viennese equivalent to Purell is, we were washed down, and wiped off, and inoculated every time we came out.

AX: James Cromwell has joined the BERLIN STATION cast this season. Did you get to work with him?

ORSER: I can’t tell you that.

AX: I was going to ask how it was working with him, but that would entail you saying whether it happened …

ORSER: What a terrific guy, what a fascinating man, what an incredible career. The stuff between him and Richard Jenkins is going to be a total delight for the viewers. The two of them together – such a classic match-up.

AX: Besides the canoe and the sewer, were there any other things on BERLIN STATION that surprised you, where you were thinking, “Wow, I didn’t imagine we’d be doing this”?

ORSER: Yes. There’s a lot this season. There’s so much I can’t tell you, but my character is in the field this season, so my journey is a lot more physical, I get involved in a lot of action sequences on the ground, in the thick of it. So that was challenging in multiple ways. I think this season for Robert is about choices, and usually the choices that he makes end up being the right ones, and I think a number of the choices he makes this season are the wrong ones, and so I think the Fourth of July party [in the Season 3 premiere] is the best you will see him this season. After that, he sort of steps off a precipice and falls down a very dark hole of the journey.

AX: In the first episode of Season 3, we find out that Robert is supposedly going to be transferred to Japan. Did you learn any Japanese for Robert’s presumed transfer?

ORSER: I certainly did. You’re going to hear it in my second scene. [He says a phrase in Japanese.] That’s an old haiku, and I can’t get it out of my head. I think it’s about a pond, dripping water into a pond or something. That’s about it.

AX: If BERLIN STATION goes to Season 4, will it go to TOKYO STATION, or will Robert decide that Europe needs him too much?

ORSER: Boy. That’s the million-dollar question. You’re going to have to wait until Episode 10 to find that out [laughs].

AX: According to IMDB, you have several movies coming up. Can you say what they are?

ORSER: BLINDSPOTTING is produced by Keith and Jess Calder. That’s the movie Rafael Casal and Daveed Diggs did [they also produced as well as starring and writing]. I play the judge in the opening scene. You never see me, but you hear my voice. I did that as a favor for those guys, because they produced THE GUEST and FAULTS, and one other movie that I did with them, THE DEVIL’S CANDY. They’re terrific people, Jess and Keith Calder.

THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE is Riley Stearns, who wrote and directed FAULTS, a movie that I did, and this is his newest film, with Jesse Eisenberg, and I have a cameo in that. And then I AM THE NIGHT is the miniseries on TNT that Patty Jenkins directed, Sam Sheridan wrote and executive-produced, and it stars Chris Pine. I’m in that. That comes out in the end of January, it takes place in the ‘60s, it’s a really cool noir story. I play Chris Pine’s editor; he’s a newspaper man.

AX: And what would you most like people to know about BERLIN STATION Season 3?

ORSER: It’s going to be exciting, it’s going to be tense, it’s going to be shocking. I would just say enjoy the calm before the storm, the first episode, because brace yourself. It’s going to be hardcore this season.

4 Dec 2018 - 12:42pm

Everything you need to know to be ready for Berlin Station season 3


Berlin Station has quietly built a reputation over its first two seasons as television's smartest spy drama - this is your refresher to get you up to speed for the third season return.
By Anthony Morris

3 Dec 2018 - 3:36 PM UPDATED YESTERDAY 12:42 PM

At the end of the last season of Berlin Station, both Germany’s alt-right and an unruly US Ambassador had been brought to heel, and the CIA’s Berlin branch only had to fake one death to do it. So season three of spy novelist Olen Steinhauer’s take on the morally grey world of espionage (with a strong nod to the gripping style established authors like John le Carre) should see everyone kicking back and putting their feet up, right? Hardly.

Set over a nail-biting eleven days, this season sees mysteries resurface, allegiances tested, and the uncovering of a plot that could send Europe down the path to a new Cold (or even Hot) War. So how did we get here?
There’s a new boss

For two seasons now, Valerie Edwards (Michelle Forbes) has been after the CIA’s top job in Berlin. Season one saw numerous people jockeying for the position after the retirement of Steven Frost (Richard Jenkins); season two had Edwards fuming as the top job was taken by outsider BB Yates (Ashley Judd). But as season three opens, finally Edwards gets to settle into the role of the CIA’s Chief of Station in Berlin.

After a flashback to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the series opens with Edwards sending Daniel Miller (Richard Armitage) and Robert Kirsch (Leland Orser) off on a diplomatic mission to Estonia, where they promptly find evidence of a covert Russian invasion. And that’s not the only thing they uncover: Daniel stays behind in the former Soviet republic when he finds a vital lead on “Diver”, the mysterious spy who – he believes – killed his mother on the night the Berlin Wall came down.

She’s not the only one with a new job

Yates didn’t vanish between seasons. She’s been promoted to play with the big boys on the National Security Council, which is a position that’s going to leave her facing some very difficult choices as the season goes on. Also promoted is junior CIA officer April Lewis (Keke Palmer), who now gets to handle an asset on her own, while German spy Esther (Mina Tander) is working extremely closely with Miller on his quest to track down his mother’s killer.

As for the former Chief of Station Steven Frost (Richard Jenkins), he’s found new purpose in life putting his spy skills and extensive contacts to work in the private sector. So while he’s clearly no longer an official part of the CIA’s battle against the forces of evil, there’s no doubt he’ll be turning up here and there (plus he’s in all the advertising for the new season).

There’s a new spy in town

While in Estonia, Miller and Kirsch meet up with Rafael Torres (Ismael Cruz Cordova), a much more modern kind of CIA agent. While most of the Berlin Station team have had their attitudes shaped by the Cold War and its aftermath, Torres is an veteran of special forces work in Iraq and Afghanistan whose approach to spycraft is a little bit more… pro-active.

With Miller now off on his own personal mission, Torres comes on board to handle some of the more hands-on assignments. Being part of the team means he gets to spend serious time with Kirsch – who isn’t exactly okay with this self-proclaimed wild card – and also meet up with Hector DeJean (Rhys Ifans), who you may remember didn’t actually die at the end of last season, despite getting a decent funeral.

They’re being squeezed from both directions

As you might expect from a series that dealt with the rise of the far-right in Europe last season, Berlin Station likes to keep its finger on the pulse of geopolitical events. So when the CIA uncover evidence that Russia is meddling in Estonia in a very serious way, they soon discover that 2018 isn’t exactly a time where the White House can be relied on to do the right thing. What happens when they have evidence of a Russian plot that strikes at the very heart of NATO but the people they report to either don’t care or actively want to bury it?

Hey, isn’t that James Cromwell?

Just to make things even more difficult for Edwards and her team, retired spy and CIA legend Gilbert Dorn (James Cromwell) has decided now’s a great time to start talking about his past missions – on a podcast, of all things. But while revealing where the bodies are buried makes things more difficult for Edwards, he’s just the man Miller and Esther need to fill in the gaps in their quest for Diver. That is, if he’s not working some agenda of his own. And let’s be honest, he almost certainly is.

Cromwell’s always a welcome addition to a series, in part because he’s the kind of performer who’s so charming you don’t mind when his character turns out to be evil. He’s also becoming something of a spy drama regular; it’s also been announced he’ll have a recurring role in the next season of parallel world espionage thriller (and SBS On Demand hit) Counterpoint.

Berlin Station’s Leland Orser Talks the S2 Finale, What to Expect in S3 and More [Exclusive]

Posted by Kara Howland on December 4, 2018 at 10:22 pm

In the Season 3 premiere, we return to a station that’s “business as usual.” Michelle Forbes’ Valerie Edwards is Chief of Station and over the course of 11 days, she will guide her team through the high-stakes relationship between Russia, the United States and its vulnerable NATO allies. Is the Kremlin involved in any foul play that could upend a thinly-held World Order?

Before I even start in on my list of questions, Leland Orser — almost gleefully — informs me that, “Yes, my first word of the season is ‘fuck.’” Ok. I suspected this would be a fun interview, but know I know it will be. We talk about Season 2 finale, what to expect for him and some of the cast in Season 3, how this show seems to be eerily topical and more.

TV GOODNESS: Your scene with Noah in the S2 finale showed us a lot about your character that we hadn’t seen before. Can you talk a little bit about filming that scene and what you think it brought to viewers in terms of getting to know your character a bit better?

Leland Orser: “Sweet boy Brandon [Spink], who plays Noah. I think it’s everything. What we learned about Robert last season through his relationship with Noah, it tells you everything about who he is as a man — the impossibility of his situation, being so good at his job and basically devoted to that job.

It’s his calling in life, serving the CIA and his country, makes it impossible for him to be the ideal father. Makes it impossible for him to be a good husband.

That scene where he confided in his son the secret of his life and what it is that he does, he gave him the gift of that secret and basically treated him like a man. The two of them now have that understanding and that bond.

Noah will now understand, wherever Robert is in the world, whatever it is that he’s doing, he’s in on that. He’s a part of that and it’s not in spite of him. It’s something that he can be proud of and understand and know that that is the reason for his father’s absence in his life. And not because he’s not a good son. Not because he’s done something wrong. And I think that’s a beautiful thing.

What you’ll see with Robert this season is that he’s come to terms with the fact that he’s better at his job than he is at anything else in his life. He’s a better spy than he is a parent or father or a husband. But his calling in life, and it is a calling in life — it’s his destiny to do this job because I think he believes that nobody else can do it better.”

TV GOODNESS: That makes a lot of sense for your character.

Orser: “But it doesn’t take away the guilt. It doesn’t take away the grief, the sadness, the regret. Jason Horwitch, our new showrunner and head writer, taught me the word cauterize. I think he’s emotionally cauterized. He’s stopped the emotional bleeding, so that he can continue on with the cause of his work.”

TV GOODNESS: For people coming back for S3, can you preview the episode and talk about what we’ll see this season?

Orser: “All is well, quiet on the western front, eastern front, northern front, southern front. Life is good. We start with the team. Valerie is running the ship. It’s business as usual. We come together with the gang at a party on the 4th of July, Independence Day.

It’s not a coincidence that that day was chosen. It’s an all-American day. It speaks to great scenes in the history of the world and that idea of independence will be a major theme of the season.

It’s the calm before the storm. The season takes place over 11 days. I think it’s the best day of the season. I think things speed up and descend from there, especially for Robert. They descend into a very, very dark place.

Season 3 is more fast paced. There’s more action, which I really enjoy. But there’s also the stuff that we’ve come to love, so many layers of story and making sure we’re knowing what’s going on with all the characters and then maybe we don’t because things are going in a different direction.

Again, nothing is as it appears. Don’t assume anything from episode 1.

Each one of the characters goes on their own specific journey. And believe it or not, in a way you wouldn’t even imagine, all of those journeys come together by the end.”

TV GOODNESS: Good. Are you allowed to talk about any new characters and how Robert interacts with them? Or any returning characters and how Robert interacts with them?

Orser: “Absolutely. We have one pronounced new character Ismael Cruz Cordova, who plays Torres. He’s a terrific guy; we spend a lot of time together this season.

On the page, we are the opposite. He’s young and brash and unconventional and disrespectful of authority and marches to his own drum. Now, that being said, I believe all of those things are the same about Robert, just manifested differently.

Robert is dismissive and suspicious and distrustful of him from the get-go. And I think the same can be said of Torres towards Kirsch. The interesting thing will be the relationship that’s forged between the two of them over the ten episodes and how their individual strengths will come into play and be called upon to assist each other.

Robert is out of the office and in the field this season, in a big way.”

TV GOODNESS: That is so exciting. How was that to play? Did you enjoy it?

Orser: “So much fun. We traveled a lot. There’s one big episode that happens mid-season where we shot the whole thing in Vienna. I think that’s going to be a real treat for the viewers. And for film fans, we shot in the sewers of Vienna where The Third Man was shot and that a very, very exciting, if not a smelly experience.”

TV GOODNESS: That’s great. Are you allowed to talk to me about BB and Kirsch?

Orser: “Yes.”

TV GOODNESS: I know you might not be able to tell me specific details, but they are very interesting. Are you allowed to say if anything develops in S3?

Orser: “Their paths cross again. It’s not over between the two of them. But not necessarily will the story be told as you might assume.

I love Ashley [Judd]. I love working with her. It’s as easy and enjoyable as anything I’ve ever done professionally. She’s such a pro. She’s such a commanding presence and we have some very interesting stuff coming up.”

TV GOODNESS: In terms of the S3 story, a potential Russian invasion is very interesting. I feel like this show is so incredibly topical. What’s that been like to go into work and realize that the storylines that you guys are doing are so …

Orser: “Well, it started as a fictional, cautionary tale using examples of what had happened in the past in that part of the world [and] has ended up on the front pages of all the news sites. It’s shocking. We’re all agog and texting each other these headlines.

I was doing ADR, which is dialogue replacement that you do when there’s sound problems on the track. So you go into a studio and you voice over the lines that you’ve already said. I was doing that the other day and I was literally saying words that I had heard on the news that morning.

And I was like wait a minute, where did I just … What did I … What’s … Is this live or is it Memorex, you know?

Jason had a plan from the get-go. His themes were the Crimean playbook, they were Russia, they were NATO, they were Article 5 and let’s hope the outcome in the show, remains the outcome in the show.”

TV GOODNESS: The time we’re living in right now, we’re seeing these headlines come to life in some form in a fictionalized version. It’s crazy. But I love that you guys are doing that.

Orser: “You know what I think? I think the CIA’s job is getting harder, exponentially. But the CIA itself has always been a rogue operation and we certainly have a great team of rogue operators. They’re really put to the test this season.”

TV GOODNESS: Anything else you want to talk about?

Orser: “You know, we have James Cromwell in the cast this year.”

TV GOODNESS: That’s right.

Orser: “Brace yourself for… well brace yourself period for the season because shit’s going down. And then these wonderful scenes between Richard Jenkins and James Cromwell two wonderful, amazing American actors. There were many people on set standing at the monitors and peering in and listening in when the two of them were performing together.

Yeah, it’s a twosome tour de force between the two of them.

It’s always fun to be with Richard Jenkins. We have such a good time together and I think you’ll really enjoy Ismael as an addition to the cast. He’s very, very physical performance. He’s got a wonderful season this year.

The greatest thing that happened to us though, was Jason Horwitch, who’s the showrunner. He wrote a series called Rubicon. He came to us directly from House of Cards. He’s got a big old brain and he’s just filled with energy.

He took a show that had been on for two seasons and he made it his own. And he made it his own filled with excitement and energy and joy. He loved it. He was over there with us. He’s been a part of it from the beginning.

We talk every day about how we can make it better, what it needs, what we need and just a terrific new leader of our team. And member of the team.”

TV GOODNESS: I feel like it definitely comes out in the season three premiere. I thought it was really enjoyable and I can’t wait for people to see it.

Orser: “I think it’s our best season yet and I think it also opens so many doors and so many possibilities. It’s a great job and I love it.”

TV GOODNESS: I’ve seen you in quite a few things and you seem to really enjoy this character and this part.

Orser: “I sometimes don’t know where I end and he begins.

I did this miniseries with Patty Jenkins and Chris Pine and Sam Sheridan called I Am the Night. That comes on in the end of January. It’s a completely different character, a completely different role. It’s a period piece, which I think you’ll be interested in as well. It’s a great part. I think it’s going to be really exciting. It’s on TNT.”

Berlin Station interview: Leland Orser previews a nail-biting season 3

by Brittany Frederick 2 days ago Follow @tvbrittanyf

Berlin Station has returned and star Leland Orser told FanSided what’s in store during the new season of the top-notch spy thriller.

TV’s best spy series is back. EPIX‘s drama Berlin Station is now in its third season, and continuing to deliver overseas intrigue along with outstanding performances.

Leland Orser, who has been magnificent as hard-nosed CIA Deputy Chief Robert Kirsch, previewed what’s coming for Robert and his colleagues while talking about his experiences being part of such a timely series.

Find out what intelligence he had to give below, then make sure you tune into the next episode on Dec. 16 on EPIX. If you don’t have EPIX, you can sign up for a free trial here.

FanSided: Berlin Station is now your longest TV role since your days on ER. How has it been to live with Robert Kirsch for three seasons?

Leland Orser: It’s a dream to develop a character, to live with a character, to dig deeper into a character. I think it’s a great thing for the actor and a great thing for the show. You learn more about yourself as that character the more time you spend with them. I love the character of Robert Kirsch. This is a guy who wears his heart on his sleeve and finds it very difficult to not to say what he’s thinking.

What would he say about another change at the top of the team? Because there’s a third Chief of Station this season.

He believes that Valerie [Michelle Forbes] is the right person for the job and that she’ll be there and he’s good with it. He respects her. He respects her talents. They’re longtime colleagues.

They had issues with each other in the first season; I think they worked through those and those were no longer existent in the second season, and they certainly don’t exist in the third season. They’re there to get the job done. They’re professionals before anything else.

Berlin Station season 3 began with Robert on a mission alongside Daniel Miller (Richard Armitage). Is that typical of what fans will see from him this season?

Robert’s in the field this season. He’s back to where he started as a CIA agent [and] he’s very good at it. He’s tested. He’s challenged. He’s pushed to the limit and he has decisions to make on the fly—and right or wrong, he has to live with the effects of those decisions.

Some of those decisions don’t go the way he wants them to, so I think you’re going to see Robert go down a dark hole this season. It’s a very big, tough season for him, a very tough journey for him and one from which it’s possible he won’t recover.

Is there anyone who can help him out of that hole? Someone on the team that he could rely on?

This season is completely different for Robert. Robert ends up in a very bad place and it’s interesting where he finds support and where he finds help this season. He actually finds it from the younger members of his team—Keke Palmer’s character April and Ismael Cruz Cordova’s character Torres. Both of them are helpful and supportive of Robert when he needs it.

How was it for you to focus more on the professional side of the character after the second season of Berlin Station dove into Robert’s personal life?

I loved doing both. Robert’s come to terms with the fact that he’s better at his job than anything else in his life and he’s accepted that. There’s a certain amount of emotional cauterizing that’s taken place but it’s always there. His son is ever present in his life, in his thoughts but he’s come to terms with that his job is what he does. He’s not a full time parent, he’s certainly not a husband but he’s come to terms with that and he’s put that in a place where he can move on into his work and do his work well.

Thematically the show has proven to be very timely. How would you describe the story in Berlin Station season 3? What are the issues and themes it plays with?

The CIA’s job is to find the truth and deliver it to the President. How did that job change in a post-truth, alternative facts, fake news world? Our relationship with the rest of the world—will we continue to be the moral authority, the backbone of the West and the rest of the world?

What’s our relationship to Russia? Russia knows they have a friend in the American government and how far will they press that friendship? Do they perceive it as weakness? And what will they do to take advantage of it?

These are some of the themes that are we’re playing around with this year. Trust is a big theme this year. Who do you trust, who can you trust, who don’t you trust, what is trust and what are the different levels of trust? That’s a big theme for Robert this season.

The biggest strength of Berlin Station is its cast. How has your relationship with the cast evolved three seasons on?

We’re an extraordinary team there now. It’s the greatest thing in the world. It means that we’ve achieved a level personally and professionally amongst each other that will allow us to go to a even higher level creatively. So much is now second nature; we all know each other, we all love each other. We all appreciate coming to work with each other. We’re grateful for what each and every one of us brings.

We have this brand new showrunner, Jason Horwitch, who came to the show with such excitement and such energy. He took what was already in place, made it his own and then ran with it. It’s as if he’s been with us since the beginning, which is wild. He’s gotten inside our characters and inside our heads, and taken what we’d already laid down and written for it and written into the future.

How would you describe the progression of Berlin Station overall?

Season 3 takes the show to a whole new level. There’s so much to appreciate this season, and it’s so exciting and it’s so timely. You open up your laptop or phone every morning and frighteningly enough, you’re seeing many aspects of the story that we’re telling this season on the front page. What started out as, Jason likes to call it a cautionary tale, has turned into something else.

Heavy.com
Entertainment

Berlin Station Season 3: Five Questions From Episodes 1, 2

By Jessica McBride

Updated Dec 9, 2018 at 1:03am


Berlin Station’s good-looking spies – operating against the complex tapestry of modern-day Germany and Eastern Europe – return in a third season that sees Daniel Miller (Richard Armitage) sleuthing his past while caught up in unfolding international intrigue. Warning: There will be spoilers in this article for episodes 1 and 2 of Berlin Station Season 3.

Berlin Station airs Sundays on EPIX at 9 p.m. ET. The energetic series, which chronicles the exploits of the CIA station headquartered in Berlin, has its devoted fans; in some ways, it echoes the season where Homeland’s Carrie went to Germany, without the bipolar stuff. People tweet about the show as the #whitetshirtgang, which appears to derive from Robert Kirsch’s (Leland Orser’s) fondness for them:

This season’s plot has a modern feel to it, as fleeting references to President Obama and to President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan anchor the time frame in the present day. A Russian plot in Estonia gives the show even more modern currency. Russians are the baddies, and they even operate a social media troll factory designed to take down a charismatic forward-thinking Estonian politician who wants to knit her country’s ethnic Russians into its fabric, an altruistic goal that the Russians can’t allow to happen if they want to destabilize their former satellite. They need people angry.

“Berlin Station is about to become the tip of the spear as the US’s role in the world and with Russia changes swiftly and radically,” the show’s Twitter page says.

1. Is Daniel Dead?

Episode 2 ended with the Russian baddie, whom we earlier see training ethnic Russian militia men and slaughtering one of them in front of a bloody pig pile, lighting a blue-jean clad man on fire with old Soviet rocket fuel. Because Daniel was sneaking around the supposedly inactive Russian missile bunker just moments before, because the Bad Guy Russian has pummeled him a few times already, and because we’ve been treated to plenty scenes of Daniel’s jean-clad backside running through the streets, the show sets it up to make you wonder if… Daniel is the guy on fire.

It’s pretty impossible to believe it will be, though; after all, he’s the series’ protagonist, and his quest to find out what happened to his mother is the major subplot, so it’s probably going to end up being the junkie who led Daniel there.


2. Who Is ‘Diver’?



Episode 1 opens with a man, later revealed to be a CIA guy named “Diver,” infiltrating an East German Stasi headquarters during the fall of the Berlin Wall. It’s an interesting and not-explored-enough milieu. He ends up rescuing, from Russian clutches, the guy who later ends up becoming a peaceful and valiant leader of Estonia, and brings him to the west, where they are photographed.

The show then switches back to the present day as Daniel reveals to his girlfriend, Esther Krug (Minda Tander), a German intelligence officer, that he believes Diver may be the man who killed his mother, who was with a traitor the CIA wanted dead. He comes across the name in a podcast. He initially asks Esther to find out if Diver was real and to snag his old Stasi file from BND headquarters; Esther eventually tells Daniel that Diver was real but the file is missing (viewers know that Diver torched it on his way out of the Stasi building.)


Fate would have it that Daniel is sent with the CIA station’s Robert Kirsch to Tallinn, Estonia’s capital, to get a handle on Russian-fueled tensions and perhaps prevent the descending of a new Iron Curtain. While there, he meets up with the aforementioned peaceful and valiant leader (a sort of Vaclav Havel type), who practically dies in Daniel’s arms (they think he was poisoned with a flower with the Russians to blame.) While snipping a lock of the man’s hair from the hospital morgue, Daniel unearths the photo from the dead man’s wallet showing him with Diver at the Wall. We can’t see Diver’s face in the picture.

In a later flashback, we see a child Daniel watching his mother get into a car that blows up. He sees the back of a man who looks a lot like Diver (tan trenchcoat and all.) Although season 1 and 2 did not reveal Diver’s identity, Daniel did provide a core clue. After looking at the photo, even from behind, he said he knows who Diver is; that means Diver is likely to be someone viewers also met in seasons 1 or 2. That would put the money on retired chief Steven Frost (Richard Jenkins) or Hector DeJean (Rhys Ifans), but time will tell.


3. Is Rafael too Unstable?

Robert is suspicious of Rafael Torres (Ismael Cruz Cordova), the incredibly intuitive, street-smart, somewhat off-the-rails (but always right) guy who’s in charge of the entire CIA operation in Tallinn. He’s a welcome addition to the show, and we’re introduced to him when he barges into a cafe of hardened ethnic Russians to draw one of them out so he can torture him to get information about what the Russians are up to in Estonia (no good. It involves weaponry being stored in an old missile silo accessed by a supposedly defunct rail line.)

Torres is charged with protecting Sofia Vesik, the Estonian woman who is in line to be the next prime minister and who is a celebrity-of-sorts with a massive Twitter following.

What’s in Torres’s past? We learn he’s spent time in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen – some “hot theaters” as Robert says, puzzling over why Torres would end up in previously sleepy Tallinn. We then learn what he’s learned; there’s a “pych eval” in Rafael’s past. Right now Torres is teetering between bad guy and good guy, but he’s most likely to land in the latter camp. He’s Jack Bauer-like unorthodox, but he gets the job done. And he’s always right, like when he sniffed out a sniper nest in an Estonian housing project after shoving Sofia into her own car, which doesn’t seem like it would offer much protection, but they drive away with Sofia’s life intact.


4. Will Esther & Daniel Stay Together?

The series opens with Esther and Daniel snuggling in bed and Daniel giving her a copy of “Spy vs. Spy” for her birthday. They then pretend they’re not together when they both show up at a CIA barbecue on a breathtaking rooftop in Berlin, but everyone’s already figured it out.

Valerie Edwards (Michelle Forbes), who is now running the CIA station in Berlin with her signature steely grit and silk bathrobe-like dresses, tells Daniel he has to let the American government know he’s dating a member of a foreign intelligence service to get it cleared. It’s a little surprising she’s let it go on unreported this long. Daniel promises to report the matter when he returns from Tallinn.

Of course, this also depends on the answer to #1.


What’s With the April Subplot?

April Lewis (Keke Palmer) plays Daniel’s “Girl Friday,” studying maps to spot the defunct Russian rail line and staying up all night because she’s handling him and he’s wandering around supposedly abandoned Russian missile silos and befriending Estonian huffers. But she’s got her own op going on.

It involves an African guy she’s pretending to like; a suspicious guy comes into the restaurant and keeps looking his way while they lunch, but it’s not yet clear what this has to do with anything beyond giving the bright and peppy April something of her own to do. It’s about time.

Mina Tander: Deutschlands Sonnenschein an kalten Tagen

MONTAG, 17. DEZ 2018


Minus drei Grad, eisblauer Himmel über Berlin und Weihnachten steht vor der Tür. Was könnte es also an so einem Tag besseres geben, als sich mit Mina Tander, nur einen Tag nach ihrem Geburtstag, zum Kaffee zu verabreden!? Mina, die seit über 20 Jahren aus der deutschen Film- und Fernsehwelt nicht wegzudenken ist, hatte ein arbeitsreiches und erfolgreiches Jahr 2018 und auch für 2019 stehen alle Zeichen auf Erfolg. Wir wollten wissen, was es über die neue Staffel von „Berlin Station“ zu erzählen gibt, worauf Zuschauer sich in den neuen Episoden von „jerks“ gefasst machen dürfen und auch, was es mit dem im März 2019 startenden Kinofilm „Rocca – verändert die Welt“ auf sich hat. Wie sie Weihnachten feiert und ihr Business-Life und die Familienaufgaben unter einen Hut bekommt, verraten wir dir jetzt.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY nachträglich, liebe Mina. Du hast ja gestern erst Geburtstag gehabt und wurdest junge 40 Jahre alt. Hast du schön gefeiert?

Dankeschön. Und ja, ein bisschen gefeiert habe ich auch. Es war sehr schön. Ich mag Geburtstage sehr. Ebenso Weihnachten, denn das sind in meinen Augen Tage, an denen man den Alltag einfach einmal hinter sich lassen darf und an denen es möglich ist, einfach etwas Schönes zu tun und die Zeit mit seiner Familie zu genießen – und ich habe eine sehr große Familie. Ich gönne mir dann auch die Freiheit, einmal nicht auf E-Mails zu antworten oder das Telefon auch mal klingeln zu lassen, ohne rangehen zu müssen. Ich feiere mich also nicht selbst, sondern freue mich über die Zeit, die ich an diesem Tag mit Familie und Freunden verbringen darf.

Also feiert ihr Weihnachten auch im großen Kreis?

Sonst eigentlich ja und die letzten fünf Jahre kamen immer alle zu uns. Aber dieses Jahr fahren mein Mann, meine Tochter und ich an die Nordsee – auf eine einsame Insel, wo nicht einmal Autos fahren. Einfach abschalten und ein paar ruhige Tage verbringen. Ich muss nur noch zusehen, wie ich das Thema „Weihnachtsbaum“ erledigt bekomme, denn meiner Tochter ist ein Baum ziemlich wichtig. Und aktuell habe ich noch keine Ahnung, wie ich das realisiert kriege. Aber mir wird sicherlich etwas einfallen, denn ein paar Tage habe ich noch Zeit.

Am 5.12. startete auf Netflix die dritte Staffel der US-amerikanischen Spionage-Serie „Berlin Station“, in der du wieder eine knallharte Agentin spielst. Was dürfen die Zuschauer bei den neuen Folgen erwarten?

Generell ist es so, dass die politischen Geschehen noch härter als in den anderen beiden Staffeln auf die Agenten der Berlin Station prallen. Diese müssen damit natürlich lernen umzugehen und am Ende des Tages so etwas wie einen dritten Weltkrieg verhindern. Was meine Figur angeht, ist es so, dass die Zuschauer dieses Mal eine andere Seite von mir kennenlernen werden. Eine weiche und verletzliche Seite sozusagen. Allerdings nicht nur – denn ich bleibe eine harte Agentin, zumindest im Beruf.

Die Macher von „Berlin Station“ wollten ja auch, dass du deinen deutschen Akzent beibehältst, während du Englisch sprichst. Was hat diese Tatsache für einen Hintergrund?

In der Tat sollte ich anfangs einen leichten deutschen Akzent haben. Ursprünglich war gar nicht geplant, dass meine Figur so lange dabei sein würde. Als es dann allerdings doch weiter für mich ging, war es dem Sender wichtig, dass mein Akzent so subtil wie möglich ist, denn das amerikanische Publikum kann sich mit einer durchgehenden Figur besser identifizieren, beziehungsweise besser „andocken“. Wenn eine Figur auf einmal auftaucht und einen sehr starken Akzent hat, dann stünde diese zu sehr für sich selbst. Ich kann schon verstehen, dass es bei durchgehenden Rollen immer im Rahmen sein sollte, sodass es sehr verständlich bleibt, allerdings finde ich auch, dass Akzente einen großen Charme haben und mich persönlich lenkt es nicht ab.

Berlin ist immer öfter Schauplatz großer Filme aus aller Welt. Was ist es denn, was deiner Meinung nach Berlin so attraktiv für u.a. amerikanische Serien macht?

Einerseits wegen den finanziellen Zuschüssen, um es mal ganz nüchtern zu sagen. Die neue Staffel haben wir in Ungarn und Umgebung gedreht und ich habe festgestellt, dass das deutsche Team, das für Amerika gearbeitet hat, das beste Team war, mit dem ich je zusammenarbeiten durfte. Die Amerikaner wissen es glaube ich auch zu schätzen, wie gut die Teams hier bei uns sind. Abgesehen von diesen ganzen trockenen Gründen habe ich das Gefühl, dass Berlin einfach sehr interessant ist. Für junge Leute, sowie für ältere, für nationale und internationale Künstler und Filme, aber auch die Mischung aus aktueller und vergangener Geschichte sind Gründe hierfür. Weiterhin hat Berlin dieses „nicht-fertig-sein“ und das interessiert auch sehr viele. Die Kollegen, mit denen ich gedreht habe, lieben Berlin. Sie mochten auch Budapest, aber sie haben unserer Hauptstadt wirklich nachgetrauert. Bei der letzten Staffel waren meine Kollegen ganze sechs Monate am Stück in Berlin und kannten nach kurzer Zeit angesagtere Läden als ich nach 15 Jahren Berlin. Die haben sich irgendwo informiert und wussten einfach alles. Die geheimsten Läden, die besten Bars, die coolsten Locations. Es war unfassbar.

Das Schöne bei der letzten und der kommenden Season ist, dass tatsächlich echte Freundschaften entstanden sind, denn wir arbeiten das dritte Jahr in Folge zusammen und verbringen am Set viel Zeit miteinander. Und Freundschaften wie diese halten auch bis über das Ende einer Serie hinaus und das ist etwas sehr Schönes.

Ist es denn heutzutage, in Zeiten von Netflix, Maxdome und Amazon, eher erstrebenswert in Serien mitzuspielen, als in Filmen?

Serien sind heute anders angesehen als früher. Es ist ja auch so, dass Serien, egal aus welchem Land, innerhalb kürzester Zeit um die Erde gehen, denn sie können überall gestreamt werden. Beispielsweise „Dark“ oder „You Are Wanted“. Auf der einen Seite haben wir also diese hilfreichen Streamingdienste, die besonders für Serien trumpfen können, aber auf der anderen Seite ist es auch so, dass es schon etwas anderes ist, ob man eine Serie oder einen Film dreht. Zumindest, was die Presse angeht, denn ich habe das Gefühl, dass die klassische Presse und Printmedien erst dann auf den Zug der Serie aufspringen, wenn diese bereits super erfolgreich ist. Es gibt natürlich Ausnahmen, aber diese sind selten. Meine absolute Lieblingsserie läuft auf Amazon und heißt „The Affair“. Ich liebe diese Serie! Die beiden Hauptdarsteller Dominik West und Ruth Wilson, die in Großbritannien und den USA super erfolgreich sind, habe ich persönlich noch nie in einer deutschen Zeitschrift gesehen und das, obwohl auch diese Serie unglaublich erfolgreich ist. Hier fiel mir dann auf, dass es in Deutschland eine gewisse Diskrepanz zwischen medialer Präsenz über Presse und medialer Präsenz im Fernsehen gibt. In den USA zu Beispiel ist das wieder anders. Hier gibt es Serienstars, die komplett durch die Decke schießen.

Deutschland schämt sich fremd und liebt es. Die Rede ist von der Maxdome-Erfolgsserie „jerks“, die in Zusammenarbeit mit Pro7 produziert wurde. Hier zeigen sie die Abgründe der beiden Freunde Fahri Yardim und Christian Ulmen, die sich ständig in peinliche Situationen bringen. Du hattest hier ebenfalls Gastauftritte und die neue Staffel ist bereits fertig eingedreht. Wirst du öfters zu sehen sein oder bleibt es bei Gastauftritten?

Ein bisschen mehr bin ich tatsächlich zu sehen, aber insgesamt doch relativ wenig. Ich habe Christian auch gesagt, dass er mir bitte für das nächste Mal etwas Absurdes für die Rolle schreiben soll, denn meine ist absichtlich immer etwas verkrampft und spießig. Sie findet es ganz schlimm, dass ihr Mann ihr fremdgegangen ist und dann direkt mit Andreas Bourani zusammengekommen ist. Sie schwingt einfach immer die Moralkeule.

Was würdest du sagen, ist es, dass die Leute so an „jerks“ fesselt? Ist es diese peinliche Berührtheit, die einen nicht wegschauen lässt? Immerhin ist es auf Maxdome die erfolgreichste deutsche Serie ever.

Ich glaube, der erste Grund könnte sein, dass die beiden (Yardim und Christian) sich so zum Idioten machen und dies sehr sympathisch rüberkommt. Alles, was in der Serie behandelt wird, hat einen wahren Kern und berührt die Leute unangenehm, was man lieber unter der Decke lassen würde. Und dies wird dann überspitzt. Das macht es grotesk und man fühlt sich ertappt. Diese Kombination funktioniert einfach und ich finde Christian wirklich genial, denn er hat etwas genommen, was es faktisch gibt und hat dies einfach auf die Spitze getrieben.

Am 21. März 2019 startet der Film „Rocca – verändert die Welt“. Hauptdarstellerin ist die kleine Luna Maxeiner, die eine Elfjährige spielt. Du bist auch mit dabei. Was kannst du uns über deine Rolle erzählen? Und worum geht’s in dem Film?

Es ist eigentlich eine moderne Pippi Langstrumpf-Geschichte. Dieses Mädchen hat besondere Fähigkeiten. Nicht wie bei Pippi, die sehr stark war, aber sie kann zum Beispiel mit Situationen umgehen, die außergewöhnlich sind. Ihr Vater ist Astronaut und auf der Raumstation selbst hat sie ein Astronautentraining absolviert und kann dadurch Dinge, die die meisten Erwachsenen nicht können. Daher kommt auch der Name für den Film „Rocca – verändert die Welt“. Ich spiele hier eine Lehrerin, die ein Vertrauensverhältnis zu Rocca aufbaut. Aber viel mehr darf ich noch nicht erzählen.

Wie schaffst du den Spagat zwischen all den Drehs und der Familie?

Das geht gut, da mein Mann und ich beide noch Mütter haben, die uns extrem helfen. Ohne diese beiden könnten wir das nicht so machen. Manchmal ist es kompliziert, aber am Ende des Tages finden wir immer eine gute Lösung, mit der alle zufrieden sind. Ich nehme mir aber tatsächlich sehr viel Zeit für mein Kind, auch wenn es auf dem Papier immer so aussieht, als wäre ich ständig weg. Ich bin ehrlich gesagt sehr viel bei ihr und das ist für mich auch die absolute Priorität.

Was steht denn 2019 auf deiner Lebens-To-do?

Es wird ähnlich wie 2018, denke ich. Ich bin dieses Jahr viel gereist. Ich habe mich aber auch etwas um eine meiner besten Freundinnen kümmern müssen, die zurecht etwas sauer auf mich war, da ich etwas verbockt hatte und selbst merkte, dass es so nicht weitergeht. Aber das habe ich alles wieder hingebogen. Ich möchte im nächsten Jahr etwas weniger planen und mehr spontan machen, was mit Kind immer etwas schwierig ist, aber wir werden es versuchen. Mütter wissen, was ich meine. Du bist mit Kind, Job und Ehemann einfach die ganze Zeit am Mitdenken und am Planen und du hast diesen Mastermind der Familie. Das ist vielleicht ein Frauending, habe ich so das Gefühl, Männer sehen manches meist doch lockerer. Ende des Jahres möchte ich dann noch nach Argentinien, um meine Stiefschwester besuchen. Dort bin ich noch nie gewesen und darauf freue ich mich sehr.

Liebe Mina, vielen Dank, dass du dir die Zeit genommen hast. Wir wünschen dir schöne Feiertage und einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr.

Interview mit Mina Tander in der aktuellen Ausgabe der TV-Spielfilm (11.01.2019) in dem sie Folgendes sagt: „...besonders Richard Armitage ist ein sehr feiner Mensch.“

Foto des Artikels folgt später!

I've been so lucky working with the Armitage

Hier kommt der angekündigte Artikel aus der TV-Spielfilm: