Joel Fields Compares ‘Fosse/Verdon’ to ‘The Americans’: ‘More Dancing, Less Killing’

TCA 2019: Former EP of Cold War spy drama moves over to cabaret

Fosse Verdon
Pari Dukovic/FX

Joel Fields didn’t move very far in finding his next project after “The Americans,” staying with FX as an executive producer on the network’s upcoming Sam Rockwell-Michelle Williams drama “Fosse/Verdon.”

And though his new series centers on a male-female couple that have a very complicated relationship — which sounds an awful lot like his prior series — Fields noted one major difference compared to his former Cold War spy drama.

“More dancing, less killing,” Fields said Monday during the Television Critics Association press tour.

The upcoming limited series is about the creative and romantic partnership between choreographer/director Bob Fosse and dancer Gwen Verdon, starring Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams in the titular roles. Fields argued that, though the stakes are “not the quite the same in terms of life and death,” he does see similarities between Fosse and Verdon and “The Americans’” Philip and Elizabeth Jennings.

“As we used to say on ‘The Americans,’ ‘We’re all spies in our own lives,’ and I think on this show we can say, ‘We’re all playing roles in our own lives.’ So it’s really not so different,” Fields said. “The chance to explore another complicated marriage and relationship was impossible to say no [to].”

The eight-episode show will debut Tuesday, April 9 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

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