The Veil: an MI6 agent dressed as a binman
In 2023, a year before The Veil was released, I had my first experience on a Franco-American set. It was impressive. Forty, maybe fifty people around you, several cameras rolling, and everyone waiting for you to nail the thing you are there to do.
But what I remember most is how fluid everything felt.
Ready to be ready
Most people don't realise how much of an actor's time on set is spent making sure we are available for the moment everyone else is ready. We need to be ready to be ready when everyone else is ready.
Sometimes that means hours. Sometimes it means getting ready, being interrupted, then getting ready again. Ten minutes, ten minutes, ten minutes. Sometimes it takes ages. And sometimes it's bang, now.
It's probably one of the most invisible parts of the job. Maybe not acting itself, but the role an actor has on a set. You need to keep yourself available, focused and able to do your bit when all those other moving parts come together.
On The Veil, that day was extremely well organised. Damon Thomas had a clear idea of the situation and briefed me very quickly. Steven Knight was there, script in hand, overseeing the set and the lines. With that many people involved, I really appreciated how smoothly it all worked.
What is The Veil?
Created and written by Steven Knight, The Veil is a six-part spy thriller released in 2024. Elisabeth Moss plays Imogen Salter, an MI6 agent trying to discover the truth about Adilah, played by Yumna Marwan. Their journey takes them from Istanbul to Paris and London, with a possible attack at stake and very little certainty about who can be trusted.
Dali Benssalah plays Malik Amar of the French DGSE, while Josh Charles plays CIA agent Max Peterson. The intelligence services have their own agendas, and the relationship between the two women sits at the centre of it all.
My part in the extraction
My particular role was an MI6 operative disguised as a garbage collector. A binman. The idea behind the extraction was to get the two protagonists away from French intelligence surveillance.
I'll leave you to watch the scene to see how it unfolds.
The pitch was fun. The day was fun. And I get to say I was an MI6 agent dressed as a garbage collector. That's a fairly enjoyable sentence to have in your working life.
The actors who disappear into their roles
While getting ready that day, I also met Dali Benssalah and Elisabeth Moss. A handshake, a hello and a quick chat. Nice human stuff.
They had been on the production for ages; I was there for a day. They needed their rest and their focus, and I was very conscious of that.
Elisabeth Moss belongs to a category of actors I particularly admire: those who seem to disappear behind their roles. They do the job, meet what the scene asks of them and serve the story. Sometimes I remember the performance, the character and the character's name before I remember the actor's name.
Jim Broadbent, who plays Professor Horace Slughorn in Harry Potter, is one of those actors for me. So is Jonathan Pryce, who plays Governor Weatherby Swann, Elizabeth Swann's father in Pirates of the Caribbean.
That's what I aspire to do: disappear behind the performance and be in service of the whole film. Whatever the size of the role. Even when the costume happens to be a binman's.
A look behind the scenes
FX's feature below brings together Steven Knight, Elisabeth Moss and members of the team for a closer look at how The Veil was made.
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