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" Season 2, Episode 5: &amp;quot;The Deal&amp;quot; During the new season of The Americans, we&amp;#039;re looking at the show&amp;#039;s use of espionage tactics and getting behind-the-scenes accounts from the creators, directors, make-up artists, actors, and even former spies to help analyze what&amp;#039;s under the covers. This week, Esquire spoke to Cliff Simon, who plays a mysterious member of the Israeli Mossad, simply known as &amp;quot;Agent.&amp;quot; After botching the capture of Soviet defector Anton Baklanov, Philip Jennings (Matthew Rhys) captures Simon&amp;#039;s character and what ensues is one of the more psychologically arresting scenes of the series, one that encompasses the entire episode. For Simon, a South Africa-born actor who&amp;#039;s best known for his role on Stargate SG-1, it&amp;#039;s a breakout moment. We hope he returns in the future, because he owns this episode. Here, he breaks down playing the captive, how an ass-wiping scene goes, and more. ESQUIRE.COM: In &amp;quot;The Deal,&amp;quot; you&amp;#039;re taken hostage by Philip Jennings. Take us on a tour of that episode for you.  CLIFF SIMON: Running it like that, the length of time, was conducive to the whole feeling of what it would&amp;#039;ve been like. I was tied up with the extension cord... I&amp;#039;ve never been so uncomfortable in a scene in all my life. I&amp;#039;m a pretty claustrophobic person, but to sit like that, tied up on the floor, on set for about an hour... I started to get a little bit nuts. I said, &amp;quot;I need a break, I need a break!&amp;quot; I started to shake and break out in a cold sweat. What I love about the show is that it&amp;#039;s not just guns and shooting. It&amp;#039;s a real psychological show. What I love about my character is how he got into Philip&amp;#039;s head. Someone eventually got through to Philip, someone who&amp;#039;s just like him, just working for a different organization, feels the same as him and understands what he&amp;#039;s going through. That&amp;#039;s when he comes up with the line &amp;quot;I hide what I do, I do not hide what I am,&amp;quot; which is an amazing line. It really hits home with Philip.  ESQ: That line is one of the best lines delivered by anyone in that show so far. CS: My character was amazing. That line was part of the audition scene, when I went in to read it. When I read that in the audition script, the whole character fell into place. I really felt something about it. It was very well-written.  ESQ: What&amp;#039;s interesting about your character is that he gives Philip a dose of his own medicine. He taunts, but there&amp;#039;s also a level of realness in the dynamic between you two. CS: Matthew is an amazing guy. He and Keri are both down-to-earth, they do their jobs. I immediately had a rapport with Matthew. Him being not American and me being not American and both working here, and him trying to rip off my South African accent. I don&amp;#039;t really make friends easily, but I could see, if I had to spend more time with Matthew, I really liked him and could become really close to him. I think that&amp;#039;s what set it off in the beginning.  ESQ: You mentioned the electrical cords and being tied up. How realistic was that in regards to how spies would hold people hostage?  CS: Look, I served in the military, I have certain family members who have been in Israeli secret service. I know how they operate. I&amp;#039;ve spent a lot of time with one particular family member and that is how they operate. It&amp;#039;s all about breaking someone down, but it&amp;#039;s very subtly. The other technique is to be friendly with the people. Matthew was never aggressive toward me. He was never threatening toward me. But that&amp;#039;s how he&amp;#039;s been trained. I think the scenes are really realistic to how it could be. Mossad was ruthless in the &amp;#039;70s and &amp;#039;80s. They still are, just more slick now.  ESQ: The Americans has a lot of uncomfortable scenes. This episode had Matthew Rhys literally wiping your ass. How did that go?  CS: [Laughs] We were all very excited and very apprehensive before that scene was shot. And then the day came, and it was like, &amp;quot;Okay, let&amp;#039;s see what are we going to do here?&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;ve never done anything like that. It was weird. It felt very awkward, but I think that&amp;#039;s what it was supposed to feel like. Never mind two spies going to the bathroom together, two men going to the bathroom together and one asking the other, &amp;quot;Wipe my ass.&amp;quot; It was very bizarre. When I originally read for the role, they said there might be a little nudity and was I okay with that? That was the scene they were talking about, even though they never got to show anything. You know what made that scene? There was all that weirdness going on, I&amp;#039;m sitting there, he&amp;#039;s watching me, he doesn&amp;#039;t trust me, and then the next minute there&amp;#039;s a fight scene. Even at that stage, Philip doesn&amp;#039;t get crazy with the guy. He&amp;#039;s kinda cool. ESQ: The end of your time so far on The Americans has you being traded for the Russian the Jennings were after. What do you know about how these trades happen? CS: That&amp;#039;s how underground it is, how quiet it is. That&amp;#039;s how they have to operate. We were two prisoners, and they were two guys collecting us and letting us go in some deserted warehouse, in the night. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a27941/the-americans-recap-season-2-episode-5/>