The 'Disturbing' Real World Espionage Tricks That Inspired 'Citadel'

Richard Madden admits he was "frightened" after investigating the level of espionage technology that exists in the world today.

His new show Citadel takes the spy game up a notch, with futuristic elements added to challenge the spies played by Madden and Priyanka Chopra.

Citadel is the new grand-scale Prime Video series from filmmakers the Russo brothers. The big budget affair sees two members of the spy network, named Citadel, lose all memories of ever being a spy, until the villainous Manticore reemerges with world domination in mind.

Newsweek spoke to Madden, Chopra, Joe and Anthony Russo, Stanley Tucci, producer Angela Russo-Otstot and showrunner David Weil to gather intel on Prime Video's latest offering.

'Disturbing' Spy Research

Episode 1 of Citadel opens with 12 of the most intense minutes ever put to screen. Madden's Mason Kane and Chopra's Nadia Sinh must fight their way through the carriages of a high-speed train, but ultimately their mission ends in failure, setting up the rest of the season.

As the series develops, more high-tech spy gear is introduced, but the cast and crew made sure to do their research on real world espionage to ground Citadel in reality.

"I quite like researching the gadgets and things. Back in the '50s they had pinhole cameras already back then. You'd think, no that's been the past 20 or 30 years, like no. They had all this stuff years ago, which makes me kind of frightened about what they've got now," Madden told Newsweek.

"To me it was actually thinking about the stakes," Chopra told Newsweek. "This is a real life person's real life job. People actually do this for a living. Terrifying! There is no chance I would ever. Can you imagine going undercover, lying to governments and trying to get state secrets out? Crazy."

Madden pointed out that there's one eye-catching difference between real world spies and the spies they play on TV.

"I don't think they have our budget for clothes though," he said.

Chopra agreed: "We are always in Tom Ford and Gucci. They look like everyday real people, and that's the idea of it. We're obviously a TV version."

Stanley Tucci plays operative Bernard Orlick, a Citadel ally for Mason Kane and Nadia Sinh. When we first meet him, we assume he's the tech guy behind the chair, but it soon becomes obvious he's just as handy in the field as our lead operatives.

"I was luckily never in any real danger, but who knows what the future holds. I'm much older than those two, so they're gonna have to be very gentle with me," 62-year-old Tucci told Newsweek.

"Citadel is vaguely futuristic, but from reading spy novels and watching spy movies, we've all done our research. But this tells the spy story in the way a spy story had never been told before," Tucci said.

The Russo brothers, Joe and Anthony, are a major part of the show, acting as executive producers and directors. They're best known for their work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, directing two Captain America movies, and the most recent Avengers movies Infinity War and Endgame.

"The fact this show is set in the slight future activated things for us in the sense that we could really tune into all the cutting edge stuff that's out there, even on an experimental level," Anthony Russo told Newsweek. "[We could] think about, how do you push that forward? How do we make that even more useful? You think about where it will all be in seven years for example.

His brother agreed and explained how they were unsettled by some of the research performed for Citadel.

"I think some of the scariest conversations we've ever had are with consultants where you're like, 'I just didn't want to know that. I did not want to know that the world is that complicated,'" Joe Russo said. "Surveillance-wise, and just understanding of global issues and how complex they are and what's really going on behind certain global issues."

"Also weaponry," Anthony Russo added. "It's always disturbing when you figure out the inventive new ways that people have to cause destruction."

'Citadel's' Global Scale and Budget

Citadel isn't just arriving as an English language show. The brainchild of Amazon Studios chief Jennifer Salke, she asked the Russo brothers and their production studio AGBO in 2018 to help her make an international spy universe.

Ready to launch now in 2023, English-language Citadel is complimented by spin-off shows set in other countries.

"Citadel is a global spy organization," David Weil, the showrunner told Newsweek, laying the groundwork for what's to come. "We're telling the story of two U.S. spies right within the organization. But there's an Indian series, there's an Italian series and so these stories collide in very unique ways. We can't reveal it too much about how they do. But we're building in real time with the Indian creators, with the Italian creators. We're building this grand tapestry of a story. We're building really new IP altogether. So that's been unlike anything I've been a part of ever seen before."

There is some serious capital backing Citadel, through a combination of Amazon Studios and Cattleya (part of ITV Studios). Slash Film and The Hollywood Reporter suggest there's $300 million being invested into the show, making it the second biggest budget for a TV show of all time.

"I think those numbers are exaggerated," Weil said. "I would also say we shot during COVID. So there's a lot of money that went to ensuring that the crew and the cast was safe and protected. That said, we're playing an incredibly large canvas, and we have unbelievable support from Amazon."

Weil has been behind shows like Hunters, Invasion and Solos, and he thinks Citadel is no different in terms of the stakes.

"It's always the same kind of excitement and nervousness, and we just really hope that an audience is as excited as we are. Because this is a global show, our big ambition was to ensure the authenticity and storytelling was there so we went to these places to shoot," he said.

"And we collaborated with the best of the best from each of these places," executive producer Angela Russo-Otstot added. "Citadel is the first to launch and it sets the foundation and introduces the world to this organization. But really it's just the beginning for so much more to come and that's thrilling."

The first two episodes of Citadel will be available to watch on Prime Video from April 28. New episodes will then drop weekly on Fridays.