Exclusive: Fred Melamed, Tamara Taylor, and Reece Noi Discuss Diary of a Spy

Anna is an intelligence officer on the tail end of her game, drunk, and broke after her last mission left several people dead. When she’s given a last-chance mission to seduce Camden, an asset connected to the Saudi Royal Family, she must decide between completing her mission or saving herself.

Tamara Taylor (Bones, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) plays Anna in Diary of a Spy opposite Reece Noi (Game of Thrones, When They See Us) who plays Camden. It also stars Fred Melamed (WandaVision, Barry), and rounding out the cast are Jon Lindstrom, Susan Sullivan, Paulina Leija, Madeline Zima, Casey Adams, and more. It’s written and directed by Adam Christian Clark.

“Like the best directors, he sets up an atmosphere in which you work. And if you go down the wrong alley, he might sort of pull you back, but he kind of lets you do your thing,” commented Melamed on working with Clark. “That’s the way the best directors are… really good directors have cast people with great care, and sometimes if you’re in a bad place, or a place where you’re having difficulty, the best directors know how to say a very succinct thing, and that thing can open up a floodgate. But they don’t get into great depth about your performance, rather, they let you do your job,” he continued.

Diary of a Spy marks Clark’s third feature as director, having previously directed Caroline and Jackie and Newly Single. It’s available digitally as of July 14th from XYZ films. In celebration of this, Melamed, Taylor, and Noi joined Movieweb to talk about the movie.

The Attraction of a Spy Film

“It was like nothing I’ve ever done before,” commented Noi, “I don’t like to do the same thing twice, and I think with this, I’ve definitely never done this before. So that was the initial draw. I was just intrigued and curious.” Prior to casting Noi in the film, Clark had already watched a few of his movies and was familiar with his style, he explained. “I think that when I met him, he’d already watched three of my projects… I’ve never spoken to a director who has done that… So, I think Adam had chosen very carefully… it was about trusting, ‘this is what they bring to the table, and I’m going to let them bring that.’”

“I liked the writing… these two sort of disparate characters, sort of pariahs that find each other… There was something sort of lovely about doing that,” added Taylor. “Adam would sit us down before a scene and wander us through what he sort of was hoping to see performance-wise, and then sort of let us do our thing.”

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Setting This Spy Movie Apart

There are a great number of spy movies that fans can look to, though Melamed explained that there are a few key elements that set Diary of a Spy apart from them.

“I think just the unusual nature of this movie, which is that it has this quality of being like a fever dream, and yet it’s a spy movie. I’m curious to see that combination… most spy movies are very plotting, they’re plot-driven, and they have reveals, and they have plot twists — I have nothing against them, some are very entertaining — but this movie is different because it has to do largely with internal feelings of the people doing this stuff. That’s really what’s reflected in the style of the film. It’s a moody, interesting sort of psychological look at people in the spy world,” said Melamed.

Diary of a Spy is a production of Divide/Conquer, Blueberry Films, and QWGmire, and is based on a true story. “Adam knows how much of the story is actually true and how much he invented. When I do a movie, unless I’m dealing with a historical character that has to be accurate… I would rather let the script in my own imagination take over. There wasn’t responsibility for the verisimilitude of what actually happened… Adam said it’s based on a true story. How much of it is true? I can’t say, I suspect quite a bit… how he got this information, that would have been very difficult to come by for us civilians,” teased Melamed.

Clark’s first feature film Caroline and Jackie premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and his second feature, Newly Single, was honored by the Sundance Institute and was only the third American movie to ever screen in the main competition of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Diary of a Spy is produced by David Grove Churchill Viste and Jordan Michaud-Scorza, and is co-produced by Christa Boarini and Kyle Porter. It’s executive produced by Greg Gilreath, Adam Hendricks, and Zac Locke for Divide/Conquer, and by Elan Gale, Molly C. Quinn, and Matthew M. Welty for QWGmire.