Spoilers for the series premiere of Amazon’s Citadel, “The Human Enigma,” lie ahead, so read at your own risk.
Years after it was announced to be in the works at Amazon, Citadel has finally arrived, gracing our screens as one of the biggest titles on the 2023 TV schedule. The show serves up plenty of action, political intrigue and international locales as well as some complicated characters. Stanley Tucci’s Bernard Orlick can absolutely be described as such, considering he doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty in order to fight for the greater good. That notion is summed up perfectly by a brutal interrogation scene in the series premiere, and Tucci opened up about his “strange” experience filming that moment.
Bernard Orlick is introduced as a veteran agent of Citadel, who specializes in technology and (as he puts it) is “destined to carry the world on his back like Atlas.” Eight years after the organization falls because of a betrayal, Orlick searches high and low for fellow surviving operatives. He eventually manages to locate the amnesiac Mason Kane (Richard Madden) but, ahead of that, he has an unpleasant confrontation with loyalists of the chaos-driven organization Manticore. Bernard sadistically attempts to extract information on their leader, Dahlia Archer, using a card game. His methods prove to be effective, though he murders all three men.
I had the privilege of speaking with Stanley Tucci during the press day for the new Prime Video series and couldn’t help but ask him what it was like to act out that unsettling sequence. The 62-year-old veteran performer agrees that it’s “disturbing,” yet he seems to have appreciated the experience. By the sounds of it, the moment also gave him a better understanding of who Bernard is:
It's great to me because it's so dark. I mean, it's really dark, and it's weird. And it shows that there is a cruelty there, and a real anger there. But it's also really funny, at the same time, so it's very disturbing. It's sort of, you keep going back and forth. So he clearly has no feeling for these people at all. He knows how awful they are, and he's not going to pretend that they're even human beings. And that's [a] very strange thing to play, for a good guy, which is what he is. So it's quite interesting.
Even with just its first two episodes, Citadel manages to convey the idea that these are characters with shades of gray. Yes, some fall into the traditional good and evil categories, but most of them are mixed bags. Orlick’s allegiances seem to firmly lie with the titular institution, yet you quickly get the feeling that he’s done his fair share of shifty deeds. The thought of having to perform an interrogation scene like that is daunting to me, but the Road to Perdition star pulled it off flawlessly. He’s definitely intimidating but, at the same, the star manages to convey a droll nature that’s present within many of his roles.
Stanley Tucci has played a variety of characters over the course of his illustrious career, many of which are relatively delightful. He was cheeky as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and sincere as Captain America creator Abraham Erskine in The First Avenger. Though he’s also gone to some dark places with some roles, particularly his Oscar-nominated turn as serial killer George Harvey in The Lovely Bones. So I suppose it shouldn’t be all that surprising that he’s able to blend humor and callousness while portraying Orlick.
Whether this performance ultimately makes the Internet any thirstier for “zaddy” Stanley Tucci remains to be seen. Regardless of that though, he seems to be having fun playing Orlick and working with the likes of Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden, who shares his views on stunts. Fans are going to want to watch Bernard closely as the season progresses, I think. Because after seeing the interrogation sequence, one might get the impression that he’ll be one of the show’s most unpredictable players.
Citadel drops new episodes on Fridays, and those eager to check it out should grab an Amazon Prime Video subscription.
