‘The Agency’ Season 2: Jeffrey Wright & John Magaro Talk Spycraft, ‘The Batman: Part II,’ ‘Presumed Innocent’ Season 2 & More [Bingeworthy Podcast]

“The Agency” approaches espionage less as a series of action beats and more as a study in information, perception, and control. The show is at its absolute best when it leans into that tension, allowing seemingly ordinary conversations to simmer with unease while drawing on its wealth of densely fleshed-out characters, each carrying their own agendas, vulnerabilities, and secrets. Conversations are rarely straightforward, motives are constantly in question, and even routine interactions can reshape the balance of power inside the CIA. In Season 2, the Paramount+ with Showtime drama deepens those tensions, following agents and analysts as personal loyalties, institutional pressures, and a growing sense of distrust begin to collide. But this time around the action and pacing is increasing by the second.

Based on the acclaimed French series “Le Bureau des Légendes,” “The Agency” follows Michael Fassbender as Martian, a CIA agent whose personal and professional lives continue to collapse into one another. Season 2 picks up with Martian still trying to save Samia, played by Jodie Turner-Smith, while the agency itself is pulled into a wider web of internal suspicion, shifting loyalties, and a mole hunt that turns the office into its own kind of battlefield.

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The series also stars Jeffrey Wright, Richard Gere, Katherine Waterston, John Magaro, Dominic West, and more. And truly, one of the joys of Season 2 is watching a cast this deep make even the smallest exchanges feel like fully loaded scenes. Wright, who plays Henry Ogletree, and Magaro, who plays Owen Taylor, both spoke with Bingeworthy host Mike DeAngelo about the new season, the ensemble’s unusual chemistry, and what it takes to make all that spy-world jargon feel lived-in rather than laminated.

For Wright, the stacked ensemble does not make an actor retreat inward. It does the opposite. Asked about working opposite Fassbender, Gere, West, and the rest of the absurdly loaded cast, Wright said the work becomes a matter of shared trust.

“No, you’re not focusing on you,” Wright explained. “Obviously, you’re focusing on your responsibilities to your character and your role, but what’s wonderful about working with people of this quality is that you play off one another, and we create the environment together.”

Wright said that dynamic formed early in Season 1, particularly with Fassbender and Gere. “Very early on, we found a common language and a common understanding of how to go about the work. I think we developed trust in one another very early on, and that’s the critical thing. You can’t do anything without trust.”

That trust matters even more in Season 2, where Henry, usually one of the show’s most composed chess players, finds himself knocked off balance by the possibility of something rotten inside the organization. Wright described Henry’s natural habitat as the office, which becomes less a workplace than a jungle.

“Henry’s jungle is the office,” Wright said. “That’s where he digs in with every tool that he can possibly make available to go on what really becomes, in some ways, a kind of detective journey.”

The actor said Henry spends the season trying to identify “whatever it might be that is rotten,” with the audience partly aligned with him, seeing the intrigue “through his eyes to some extent as a kind of guide behind the curtain.” For Wright, that kind of arc is especially satisfying to play.

“I really very much enjoy that type of arc, trying to get to the core of the mystery,” he said. “It’s always fun to play. And I think because the nature of the stakes this year are that much more intense, we’ve set up who these characters are, we’ve set up these jurisdictions, and these narrative threads come together in Season 2 and entangle in ways that I found much more dangerous and intense.”

Wright also gave a small but exciting tease about returning to Gotham for “The Batman: Part II.” Asked about reuniting with Robert Pattinson after their terrific Gordon-and-Batman dynamic in “The Batman,” Wright said they had already been rehearsing in London and were about to begin filming.

“Robert and I found a level of trust right away,” Wright said. “We’ve been rehearsing here in London, we start filming next Monday, the 15th. And it’s been a joy to be back together with him and to remember this kind of vibe that we found together. We kind of just picked it up pretty much instantly again.”

While Wright understandably could not say much about where the sequel takes Gordon and Batman, he did offer this: “Matt Reeves has written an absolutely insanely brilliant script.”

Magaro, meanwhile, gets one of the season’s most bruising arcs. Owen begins the series as one of the show’s more open-hearted characters, a guy who seems almost too eager, too sweet, and too transparent for the world he is stepping into. In Season 2, the field starts teaching him lessons the office never could.

“When I first signed on to do this, I hadn’t seen the French version of the show,” Magaro said. “But Joe Wright, in our initial conversation, sort of hinted at what Season 2 held for Owen. So that was exciting.”

Once the scripts arrived, Magaro said he was thrilled by the chance to move beyond the office-bound rhythms of Season 1. “It gives you something rich and meaty to chew on as an actor,” he said. “And I got to go to Kenya. That was cool. It was fun sitting in the office the first season, but it’s a lot more fun being out in the field.”

Owen’s arc is particularly fascinating because he is not suddenly transformed into a sleek spy-machine. He has to learn how to lie, how to mask himself, and how to survive in an environment where sincerity can be weaponized against him. Magaro said that made the role especially fun because “The Agency” is so much about what people choose to hide.

“Obviously, in a spy show, that’s such a huge part of it, not revealing who you truly are, wearing masks,” he said. “That’s a huge theme of the series. Unlike some of the film work I do, Owen gets to be a little broader. He has a neurosis that’s sort of on the surface.”

By the end of Season 2, Magaro believes Owen has learned that openness may not be a survival skill in this world. “He actually realizes he can’t be as open about who he really is to survive,” he said. “If we do a Season 3, I’ll be curious to see this change to Owen and what that means for him being more internal and hiding his problems more clearly.”

The actor also teased where Owen could go if the series returns for Season 3. While he does not know what creators Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth have planned, Magaro’s gut says Owen remains with the agency.

“I think [Owen] wants to be there, and I think he wants to prove himself and rise through the ranks,” he said. “So many people go into, whether it’s the military or CIA or FBI, green and idealistic, and you start to change as you realize it’s a little messy out there.”

Beyond “The Agency,” Magaro also discussed “Presumed Innocent” Season 2, which is taking an anthology approach after the success of the first season. The new installment features another heavy-duty ensemble, including Rachel Brosnahan, Matthew Rhys, Courtney B. Vance, Fiona Shaw, Jack Reynor, and Ji-young Yoo.

“I never played a lawyer before,” Magaro said. “I’m about that age. It’s funny, I feel like actors, you can mark your life by the roles you play. Your twenties, you’re playing high school and college, then you’re playing military, then you’re playing young professionals. Then father is coming. It’s just how it goes.”

Magaro said he was excited to reunite with Brosnahan, whom he has known for years, and to step into a new case with a fresh cast. “It’s very much in the vein of the original ‘Presumed Innocent,’ but it’s a whole new case,” he said. “I like this anthology world we’re in now. It’s really fun as an actor to get to come in and do that. You kind of do it once and then you’re done.”

He also teased that his character in the new season is “kind of an asshole” and “kind of an antagonist,” which, frankly, sounds like exactly the kind of fun you want from a courtroom pressure cooker.

As for what Magaro still wants to do, after a run that includes “First Cow,” “Past Lives,” “September 5,” “The Agency,” and “Presumed Innocent,” he has one clear answer: give the man a sword.

“I want to do a ‘Game of Thrones,’ medieval, ‘Lord of the Rings’ thing,” Magaro said. “I’m so not that world, but I would love to pick up a sword and wear some medieval armor or something like that. That would be fun.”

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Season 2 of “The Agency” premieres June 21 on Paramount+ with Showtime. You can hear the full interviews with Jeffrey Wright and John Magaro below or on your podcast app of choice:

Bingeworthy is part of The Playlist Podcast Network, which includes Deep Focus, The Discourse, and more. We can be heard on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Soundcloud, and most places where podcasts are found. You can stream the podcast via the embed within the article. Be sure to subscribe and drop us a comment or a rating, as we greatly appreciate it. Thank you for listening.

Mike DeAngelo

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