State of Affairs on NBC: Katherine Heigl returns to TV in expanded role

State of Affairs

NBC
Premieres: Nov. 17
Airs: Mondays at 10pm
Who’s In It? Katherine Heigl, Alfre Woodard

state-of-affairs-nbc

After a four-year hiatus from the small screen to spend time with her growing family, Heigl returns to TV as the star and co-executive producer of this political thriller from The Blacklist’s Joe Carnahan that aims to make U.S. politics and international unrest just a little bit sexy.

Heigl plays Charleston “Charlie” Tucker, a beautiful, ballsy CIA analyst entrusted with assembling the President’s Daily Briefing — or PDB for short. But Charlie’s relationship with President Constance Payton (Woodard) goes much deeper than that: She was also engaged to Payton’s son and former chief of staff Aaron, whose hero’s death in Somalia might not be as heroic as it seems. Trying to balance her high-powered, high-pressure job with the lingering trauma of that horrific day — and her personal and professional allegiance to Aaron’s mom — could be Charlie’s undoing.

Or, if she can just get her head and heart straight, her triumph.

Though the writers crafted State of Affairs as a work of fiction, Carnahan and crew work with a pair of real-life political and military experts — Ambassador Henry Crumpton, a 24-year veteran of the CIA’s Clandestine Service who led the agency’s Afghanistan campaign from 2001-2002, and Rodney Faraon, himself a briefer during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations — to keep their story credible. So the authenticity Heigl says she worried about most was “just trying to get people to believe I could actually be a CIA analyst. I think what was so compelling to me is that this is an actual job. I had never realized that. And I thought the opportunity to delve into that and show this side of the CIA was really compelling … the idea that this is ripe with all kinds of fascinating stories about this country and this world and what goes on that we don’t really know much about.”

Image: ©2014 NBCUniversal Media, LLC  Photo by: Michael Parmelee/NBC

1 Comment

  1. The show looks good. And Katherine is a great actress when it comes to drama. I really hope this show succeeds. I’m rooting for Heigl

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About Lori Acken 1195 Articles
Lori just hasn't been the same since "thirtysomething" and "Northern Exposure" went off the air.