“ The Veil talks about an international threat, but we are in something intimate,” warns French actor Dali Benssalah (Dying can wait) about this quietly captivating miniseries created by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders) in which he plays one of the main roles, that of Malik Amar. The latter works for the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE) in France, notably on a case of terrorist threat on an international scale. In fact, he collaborates with the CIA and MI6, including one of the agents, brilliantly played by Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men), embarks on a road trip under high tension with the character of Yumna Marwan (Costa Brava, Lebanon), suspected of instigating a large-scale attack, from the Turkish-Syrian border to Paris and London. “It was a pure pleasure to immerse myself in this story with all its twists and turns,” he adds.
The idea that two people are locked in a car and that their conversations could have irreparable repercussions is visionary, according to Dali Benssalah. “It’s very clever to have refocused the plot on an exchange different from a classic interrogation scene. It happens in another way, and the two women play on this special bond between them,” specifies the Frenchman. In spy fiction, if the audience usually expects action, to discover who the bad guys are and who the good guys are, in The Veil“we are really elsewhere”.
For his part, Josh Charles (The Society of Dead Poets), great admirer of the genre and in particular of the successful French series The legends officewhich shares some similarities with The Veil, believes that the series is “a look at this world that we don’t know”. He is thus the cantankerous Max Peterson of the CIA, “the most American of Americans” and a real grain of sand in the gears of this world-class investigation. “When reading the script, I was seduced by the humor and the intensity of my character,” he says.
While his disruptive and cunning energy gives Max Peterson a falsely malicious appearance, his experience in the field should not be underestimated. “He knows the rules so well that he can afford to bend them to better destabilize the people around him,” says the American actor. In reality, he wants to take control of this matter because it affects him. »And this necessarily involves a game of ego with Malik Amar.
An interconnection on several levels
This secondary narrative arc of The Veil comes from a conversation between its executive producer, Denise Di Novi, with a DGSE agent who confided to her the existence of real tensions with the other services, and especially with the CIA, relates Dali Benssalah. “Even when it’s for a good cause, when you’re the everyday James Bond, you pull each other in the way and you short-circuit each other because you want to have the lead on a mission and impose your point of view, your way of approaching things,” indicates the Frenchman. Although he did not have access to direct contact from the DGSE to prepare for playing Malik Amar, the actor was able to count on the team of the series, as well as on the co-director, Daina Reid. “By talking with her, I understood a lot of things about my character: he is stuck in the offices, he follows the missions from afar and, in addition, he has a special relationship with this superagent who can always solve all the problems . »
Fact, The Veil also shows us the special bond between Malik Amar and Imogen Salter (Elisabeth Moss). “He sends her the information he has while she is on the other side of the world, and at the same time, he fears for her every minute, every second,” emphasizes Dali Benssalah. And to continue: “He takes on himself as much as possible. And like anyone who takes it upon themselves, at some point, it becomes a Pressure Cooker…”
During discussions between Imogen Salter and Adilah El Idrissi (Yumna Marwan), everything can always change, in the blink of an eyelid, in silence. “The two female characters are breathtaking,” says Josh Charles. I like the psychological aspect, which is very developed in their relationship. ” Eventually, The Veil stands out – in addition to its breathtaking nature, and even so, it is a fiction all the way around – in view of the current geopolitical context, a few weeks after a new attack in Moscow claimed by the Islamic State group . Because it is in fact a question of remotely thwarting plans drawn up a thousand miles from the offices of these “legends”. “I started filming as my character, far from Turkey, where it all begins,” concludes Dali Benssalah.