The version of “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” that premiered on Amazon Prime Video in February is very different from the version that was first conceived. Created by Donald Glover and Francesca Sloane and based on the 2005 film of the same name, the spy drama was announced in February 2021 with Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge as John and Jane Smith, respectively. Waller-Bridge exited the project later that year due to creative differences and Maya Erskine was later cast.
“Any time I’m casting, if I have an idea and that idea doesn’t pan out, I just go for another big idea,” Carmen Cuba tells Gold Derby at our Meet the Experts: TV Casting Directors panel (watch the exclusive video interview above). “I don’t really stay in the same space as what that original idea was because in a way it feels like you’re going to a sort of second-tier version of that. And I prefer to just come at it fresh with something exciting that sort of turns it on its head and creates its own new thing. And with Maya, I’ve been a huge fan of hers and her work on ‘Pen15,’ I think, is just brilliant.”
Cuba had also already cast Erskine on “Obi-Wan Kenobi” and little did she know that everyone else in the “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” brain trust also had her in mind. “It was sort of kismet,” Cuba continues. “I think it’s that she’s singular and you could imagine a version of her opposite Donald that could be — the word that comes to mind is unpredictable because Donald is also unpredictable, not necessarily in an improv kind of way, but sort of improv-ing energetically, if that makes sense. As well as improv — watching the two of them on set just go on and on even after the scene is done. They sort of would stay in it and keep bantering and obviously that’s high-level comedy and chemistry. It was also unexpected, I think.”
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Unlike the film, the series finds John and Jane meeting for the first time and shacking up as an undercover married couple after they sign up to be secret agents for a mysterious organization. They get a new mission every episode via anonymous text as their real relationship develops. And every episode is stacked with guest stars, including Sarah Paulson, Paul Dano, Michaela Coel, Sharon Horgan, John Turturro and Ron Perlman, the last of whom is Sloane’s father-in-law in real life. The duos of Alexander Skarsgard and Eiza Gonzalez, and Wagner Moura and Parker Posey played two other sets of John and Jane Smiths. However, TPTB don’t look at them as guest stars but rather as the stars of their episodes.
“That’s also how we pitched it and agents were very excited and actors were very excited. It wasn’t really written for anyone. Michaela, [Glover] was definitely excited to find something for and she’s usually focused on her own writing, so it was tricky scheduling and we were hoping she’d say yes and this part was there, so we never really looked or had to come up with ideas,” Cuba says. “We spent a lot of time thinking about all of them and it was just like spending time in the sandbox with your favorite toys, kind of going like, ‘Who? Who of our favorites?’ I’m close to Donald and a lot of this team and I’ve known that he has had an actor crush on Parker Posey for years. So I’d been looking for a place to put them together and this was perfect. … For us, it was most exciting to put together these people that just slightly wouldn’t be predictable and don’t necessarily make sense. And it also to me created this energy of the conversation around marriage being like weird and uncomfortable.”
But Cuba did not look to a famous name to play Denise, Glover’s mom on the show. She suggested his actual mom, Beverly Glover, who is the true breakout star of the season. “I’ve known Beverly for a long time. I don’t know if Donald was thinking about it, but I was like, there’s no way it’s gonna be anyone but her. I didn’t know if we had to convince her, but she was game,” Cuba shares. “That whole family — they are performers just as themselves and she is very witty. You see she’s brilliant. I’m now trying to get her to do other things and she’s like, ‘Just hold on.’ I’m slowly gonna lead her down the path.”
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