Spoilers ahead for episode 2 of true liescalled “public secrets”.
The first in the series of real lies packed into an hour when suburban mother Helen Tasker (Ginger Gonzaga) learned that her husband Harry (Steve Howey) had been secretly a spy for Sector Omega since they were married. Since episode 2, Helen is on her way to becoming a spy. After showrunner Matt Nix told Gossipify why Steve Howey was perfect to play Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1994 film, he talked about casting Ginger Gonzaga as Helen.
Ginger Gonzaga came to real lies directly from a sheet on Disney+ She-Hulk: Lawyer and plays the CBS version of the character originally played by Jamie Lee Curtis in the 1994 film. Speaking to Gossipify at SCAD TV Festival In Atlanta, showrunner Matt Nix said finding the right people to play the lead roles was “super essential,” realizing during the casting process that finding the right Helen was going to be tough. Nix continued:
It was basically like, ‘Okay, so for Helen, [we need] someone handsome, super smart, definitely a capable spy. Who do you think can become a spy? The thing about Ginger is that she’s super smart, super athletic, super funny, and all of those things. So you buy it!
Apparently Ginger Gonzaga had everything Matt Nix was looking for to play the real lies protagonist, just as he needed someone “really tall, super muscular, very handsome, very funny, who could also act dramatic, and ideally likes to do stunts” to play Harry. The showrunner confirmed that he “feels very lucky to find two people” who could fill Taskers’ roles as spies for Gonzaga and Howey.
Of course, there’s more to playing Helen Tasker than going straight into spy mode. She started out as a character whose fighting skills were beyond her training videos and who spent her days teaching linguistics and living a humdrum suburban life. She was already honing her espionage skills in Episode 2, but she’s definitely not yet on par with the rest of the Omega Sector.
Matt Nix confirmed that it was difficult to find an actress who could sell the role of suburban wife/mother in addition to that of a super spy, saying:
When you think about it, it seems pretty simple until you start looking at people and you’re like, okay, well, that must be someone really nice, but not enough to say, “She’s not a suburban mother.” She is a model. Come on.’ Obviously, Ginger is beautiful, but she has that kind of no-nonsense quality where she buys her, and she feels like someone you might know, and all the actresses in Hollywood don’t feel like someone you might know.
The second episode showed Helen starting to have a hard time lying to her children and keeping the spy a secret, despite Harry trying to get her used to the idea of… well, “real lies”. Helen, the character, is still down to earth at home and becoming more and more experienced in the life of a spy, and Ginger Gonzaga comes through as an actress. Nix then praised a specific requirement from Helen that Gonzaga fulfills:
Even something as simple as, “I wrote this character who can speak a million languages. Can the actor achieve all these accents? Or something like: “I can give someone three sentences to say in Malagasy and they’re right?” And Ginger can, so we’re very lucky.
“Public Secrets” actually relied on Helen’s language skills as a front for the Omega Sector mission, and she has continued to showcase her skills with a wide variety of languages. Having already seen the first two episodes when I spoke with the showrunner, I pointed out to Matt Nix that I didn’t even recognize many of Helen’s languages, and he replied:
Exactly! Because they have to be dark. No one will say, “Oh wait, the linguist knows French.” Obviously he knows French!… Its he kind of nonchalant [language] it just comes off the tongue. There is a later episode where he is asked how to say something in Russian. [and] Korean, and she just says it. She just does it.
Not only did it true lies find potential customers in the words of Ginger Gonzaga and Steve Howey — have a “crazy level of chemistry” and “synergy” together, but they’re stars who could handle the unique challenges of playing Taskers. No doubt the plot will only thicken as Helen gains more experience as a spy, though the the physical demands of stunt work may still belong primarily to Howey while Gonzaga plays different sides of Helen.
Tune in to CBS Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET to see new episodes of real lies (opens in a new tab) with Ginger Gonzaga and Steve Howey, and relive the episodes thus far with a Paramount+ Subscription . You can also find the next viewing options on our 2023 TV premiere schedule .
Source: Cinemablend
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