“Veil” brings Mossy intrigue to spy life

Two real-life stories – involving a retiring grandma and a retired spy – helped propel “The Veil” (shown here), the deeply layered mini-series streaming on Hulu.
The first comes from Steven Knight, who wrote the six-parter: A British friend, he told the Television Critics Association, “had a grandmother, and she was 65, and she was retiring. She called everyone to Sunday lunch (and) said: ‘For the past 35 years, I’ve been an MI6 spy.’”
Yes, Grandma was a British spy, sort of like James Bond. Then there’s the other story, from producer Denise Di Novi.
The French spy agency, the DGSE, is intensely quiet, she told the TCA. But one night, at a hotel bar, a retired agent “had too much to drink and started telling me these things about how difficult it was that they had to start working with other agencies.”
She passed that on to Knight, who threw in the notion of a woman whom people wouldn’t suspect as an MI6 agent. They cast Elisabeth Moss (“Mad Men.” “Handmaid’s Tale”), who learned an English accent. “How many British or Australian actresses have played an American?” Di Novi asked. “Why not have an American actress play British?”
Previously, Knight had done two Dickens stories (“A Christmas Carol” and “Great Expectations”) for FX; both looked dark, dreary and sort of dismal. This one – produced by FX, but running only on Hulu — is different.
Scenes were shot in France and London. And the first hour offers haunting, snowy expanse. “No one had ever shot” there, Di Novi said.
That was on a Turkish mountain, shortly after a polar vortex, Moss said. “So we had really a lot of snow and it was very, very cold. I shoot in Canada a lot, so I’m quite used to the cold, but this was mountain cold.”
There, her character confronts someone, played by Lebanese actress Yumna Marwan (shown here with Moss), who may or may not be a ruthless ISIS killer. “These two women are constantly trying to find out who the other person is and get to the essential humanity,” Moss said.
There are two episodes April 30 and then one for each of the next four Tuesdays,
with layers to uncover. Back home, the British, French and American agencies struggle for control of the project. And in the field, Moss maneuvers.
“You’re playing one person who’s playing another person who … has a whole other person that they don’t even know about,” Moss said.
It’s all part of being an actress … and sort of like being a grandma who has spy secrets.