Why Brooklyn is fertile shoot-soil for FX’s 1980-set hit spy drama The Americans

by Susan Hornik and Matt Scanlon

Part of the art of TV/film location scouting and set design is coming up with shoot locations that might, at first blush, seem inappropriate to the point of lunacy. When FX’s hit series The Americans’ location manager Michael Fucci and production designer Diane Lederman elected to visualize urban scenes from 1980s-era Washington DC on the streets of Brooklyn, an accusation of counter intuitiveness might seem fair, but to the TV veterans, our borough’s blizzard of locales—from the placid expanses of Carroll Park and Brooklyn Heights to exterior and interior shots in Borough Hall to residential stretches of Coney Island Avenue essentially unchanged since the 1970s, ready-made backdrops were virtually endless.

Now in its third season, the show describes the frequently terrifying lives of Elizabeth and Philip Jennings (Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys), an American married couple living in DC with their children in 1980s Cold War era days…who are actually Soviet KGB agents. Created and produced by former CIA officer Joe Weisberg, the show has received widespread critical acclaim and middle-tier to strong ratings, and was renewed in late March for a fourth season.

Though studio shots take place at Gowanus-based Eastern Effects Studios (a 68,000-square-foot complex that includes New York State Qualified level II stages), an uncredited costar of the show simply has to be the city itself, not least because of its extraordinary diversity of shooting locales, as well as proximity of expertise, both behind and in front of the camera.

“The availability of talent here is just incredible,” Russell told us at FX’s Winter TCA Press Tour, when asked about the best part of filming in the borough. “You have guest stars who come in for a day from Broadway productions, say, and they just kill their parts…they’re just amazing.”

The 39-year-old Fountain Valley California native, who gained international celebrity for her 1998 to 2002 starring role in WB’s hit series Felicity, lives in Brooklyn Heights with her children, River, 8, and Willa, 3. Divorced from the father of her kids, Shane Deary, she is currently in a relationship with costar Rhys.

Regarded by The Americans cast and crew alike as remarkably down-to-earth and easy to work with, Russell was quick to point out another advantage to sharing the same borough as her job…a predilection for pedaling.

“Though it was cold for an impossible stretch, as we all know, I really do love to bike to work, though I inevitably get screaming questions from Joe [Weisberg],” she confided. “‘Where’s your helmet!?’ he demands, and I have to assure him that it’s in my backpack.”

There’s no arguing the convenience of shooting where one lives, but the show has also elected to make often generous accommodations to communities it occasionally inconveniences in the process. After an extended night shoot, for example, producers elected to donate $5,000 to Gowanus in Unity Tutoring, to further its mission of giving students individualized academic help using volunteers from the community— a donation the organization described as “very large.” Such local involvement extends to frequenting local vendors as well; production staff have been regular visitors to Horseman Antiques on Atlantic Avenue to secure set pieces, while flooring is occasionally obtained from Carpet Time in Long Island City. (The New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment estimates that the film and television production boom in the city over the past ten years has generated more than $7 billion to the local economy, and currently sustains some 130,000 jobs.)

Shoots for the fourth season are scheduled to begin in the late spring—certainly for extended sessions while the weather is fair—and Russell acknowledged the serendipity of it all— being able to avoid the typical Hollywood life of location living away from friends and family for months on end.

“I work where I live… it’s incredible,” she said, smiling. “As a parent and as a professional, it’s hard to get much better than Brooklyn.”