"The Americans" continues to explore the risky marriage that KGB agent Philip Jennings shares with FBI secretary Martha Hanson under his pseudonym, Clark. The storyline has kept Martha alive far longer than actress Alison Wright ever expected for her character.
"Everyone has said that they expected her not to survive the first season," Wright tells Headlines & Global News. The FX series started its third season on Jan. 28. "Annet Mahendru [who plays Nina Krilova] and I are always checking in with each other and seeing if we're still alive."
Philip (Matthew Rhys), as Clark, has used his relationship with Martha to gather intelligence on the FBI for his mission with the Russian spy outlet. She gladly assisted him and soon fell in love with the man who claims he works for the Committee on United States Counterintelligence Agencies.
"She's fallen in love with him. She has the rose-colored glasses. He's being exactly what she needs him to be," Wright says. "The KGB really did have an eye for psychology. They figured out what their target wanted to hear or what she thought about. It's truly thought out and they're master manipulators."
One aspect of Martha's life that Philip has tapped into is her openness to explore their sexual relationship. In the third season premiere, the two practiced one intricate position from the Kama Sutra and have always stayed very active in the bedroom since they first hooked up in season one.
Wright has only shared on-screen relationship with Rhys, whose character has shared multiple sexual partners over the course of the show. The actress finds these intimate scenes have gotten easier thanks to having only one partner.
"Luckily, it's just Matthew that I'm having to do it with all the time," she said. "I'm not having to switch people every week. That would be to stressful for me."
Martha and Clark may be having a lot of sex, but he has ruled out having children with her. She has no intentions of letting that go just yet, and Wright believes she would do anything to start a family, even if she has to seek an adoption or take more extreme measures like tampering with condoms.
"She's a very nurturing, loving woman," she says. "She's ready to push forward with marriage and be mom."
Wright predicts that her relationship with Clark will come to a head this season as the conversation continues on starting a family and helping him gather FBI files for his investigation.
"Their marriage is going to get to a deeper level. Even though it is a fake marriage, it has elements of a real relationship. It's real time that they're spending together," Wright says. "She does have certain things that she wants to achieve in terms of the family and in her home, but it's likely that her situation is going to come to reach its crisis point in the third season."
"The Americans" airs on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on FX.
