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TV SERIES · 2023– · UK

The Diplomat

Episodes
31

10 archived facts 3 topics

The Diplomat is a 2023 series created by Debora Cahn. Its team researched real diplomacy in Washington, D.C., and the show blends political intrigue with personal relationships.

10 Interesting Facts About The Diplomat

Interesting Facts (6)

  1. #001

    Creator Debora Cahn said in an interview that season 2 had fewer episodes than season 1 (6 against 8) because Netflix gave her a premiere window, and the only way she saw to meet it was to make fewer episodes. The streamer then moved the window up, and she regrets the rush; she made sure season 3 ran to 8 episodes again.

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  2. #002

    Each season began with a week in Washington, D.C., where the team heard from a steady stream of experts: politicians, foreign policy specialists, journalists, generals and ambassadors.

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  3. #003

    Cahn said one real ambassador she met came across as so unassuming that she could have been taken for a librarian, yet her career stories were full of action and unknown to the public.

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  4. #004

    Cahn likened that ambassador to a superhero in a pantsuit who saves the world while holding a china teacup, and the image became the seed of the show.

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  5. #005

    Sewell called the scene's physical comedy genuinely exhausting: Russell clung to him as they tried to lift trees, and she played dead.

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  6. #006

    Cahn said she built the Season 1 cliffhanger to leave viewers wanting more and to fuse the political and personal relationship threads into a single event that tears everything apart at once.

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Behind the Scenes (2)

  1. #007

    The producers persuaded both the US and UK governments to allow filming in real locations, among them the American embassy at Nine Elms, which opened in 2018 and still looked new. Britain permitted shooting in the foreign secretary's office, an honour rarely granted to any film or screen production, and especially not an American one. The only site they could not use was Winfield House, the US ambassador's actual residence. Though the series correctly notes that it occupies the largest residential plot in London after Buckingham Palace (11 acres), the producers filmed at a country house outside the city instead.

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  2. #008

    Stunt doubles were on set for Episode 3, but Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell did the stunts themselves, wanting the result to look less than professional.

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Easter Eggs & References (2)

  1. #009

    The Lenkov Group nods to the real-life Russian mercenary outfit the Wagner Group and its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

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  2. #010
    Contains a major spoiler — show

    Lydia Trowbridge (Pandora Colin) reveals to Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) that she first knew her husband, UK Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear), as her student: "I was his lecturer. He was studying Pushkin, taking my History of Political Thought class. . . ." The line echoes Emmanuel Macron, elected president of France in 2017 and still in office when the series was filmed and aired; Macron met his future wife, Brigitte Trogneux Macron, when he was 15 and she, at 39, was his teacher at a school theater workshop for children, and the two began dating.

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Sources & editorial notes

Reference databases

  • IMDb IMDb title page (trivia)

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