Agnes O’Casey has played so many spies, you’d think she basically is one. After her breakthrough going undercover with fascists in Ridley Road, then playing young agent Dani in Black Doves, and her recent stage performance in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, she’s now in Apple TV’s Star City, playing a KGB officer.
Yet she insists, “I would be a terrible spy, I couldn’t deal with the pressure of being sent on missions. I have to look into a coffee shop and sense the vibe before I walk in. I can deal with the pressures of acting and only acting, everything else is terrifying to me.”
Yet this Devon-raised, London-based natural star went deep into reading about Soviet life. “It’s set in an alternative history where the Soviets have reached the Moon first. It is historically accurate apart from that big difference. Star City is where all the cosmonauts, engineers and KGB officers lived. It’s about them trying to survive under an authoritarian state where the stakes are high.”
It’s an excellent series, but looks cold. “It was freezing. We shot it in Lithuania. There are moments in the show where I can see the warm clothes beneath my costume and I wish I’d taken them off. But at the time, I was like, ‘I’m going to die.’”
She plays Irina, who is taken under the wing of Lyudmilla, the boss played by Anna Maxwell Martin. “She learns horrifying hard truths about what she has to do to be ambitious.” Does playing such a character bleed into your real life? “Do you know what did bleed in? The terrible haircut. I’ve really found my haircut, so when — smallest violin — you have to say goodbye to your fringe, that bleeds into your life because you have to take your new haircut to the pub.”
After this, she’ll be in the BBC series of The Spy Who… (renamed Legacy of Spies), and Black Doves season 2, where she’s hoping for another knife fight with Keira Knightley. “One of the most fun things I’ve done. But also the scariest. Imagine shoving a knife towards Keira Knightley’s beautiful face.”
But she still has the biggest spy of all in her gun sights: a female James Bond. “It’s my big push. It’s a joke but also not a joke. I would die to play Bond.” She smiles wickedly. “This thing came out that they were looking at every actor in his thirties. I love the idea of those guys being like, ‘Aggie, shut up.’
“But I’ve thought through the whole vision. She wears suits. She’s suave and androgynous. She can be glam and slip under the radar of men but is also ready for action. And she has both Bond guys and Bond girls.
“Listen, if this does happen, I will never check my phone again because the hate would be real. But that would make it even better, wouldn’t it?”
