Once you create that false identity, you never get rid of it.
As a spy thriller returns to screens, its stars step forward not merely as entertainers but as witnesses to a deeper unease: that the psychological terrain their characters inhabit—where identity is constructed, truth is weaponized, and trust becomes a liability—now resembles the world outside the fiction. Michael Fassbender and Katherine Waterston, speaking around the second season of The Agency, draw a deliberate line between the deceptions of deep-cover espionage and the ambient misinformation of an AI-saturated present. Their warning is quiet but pointed: when even the architects of a technology cannot fully account for what they have built, the crisis of knowing what is real is no longer a spy's occupational hazard—it is everyone's.
- Fassbender and Waterston arrive at press interviews not to promote escapism but to sound an alarm: AI is reshaping the conditions of trust faster than society can respond.
- Waterston frames the absence of AI regulation as a 'Wild West,' a stark contrast to the oversight applied to nearly every other thing people consume daily.
- Fassbender admits he has personally been deceived by online misinformation, requiring his wife to fact-check beliefs he had already accepted and shared.
- Both actors stress that the most unsettling feature of AI is not its power but the uncertainty of its own creators—people building something they do not fully understand.
- The show itself, deliberately stripped of action-thriller spectacle, uses the slow psychological erosion of undercover operatives as a lens for examining what sustained deception does to a person—and a culture.
- The Agency premieres its second season on June 21st, arriving precisely when its central question—can you trust what you see and hear?—has migrated from fiction into the texture of ordinary life.
Michael Fassbender is talking about a television show, but the conversation keeps pulling toward something larger. The Agency, returning for its second season on Paramount+, follows CIA operatives so deep undercover that the boundary between their constructed identities and their real selves has long since dissolved. Based on the acclaimed French drama The Bureau and featuring Richard Gere alongside Fassbender and Katherine Waterston, the show deliberately refuses the conventions of the spy genre—no set pieces, no gadgets, no clean resolutions. What it offers instead is what Fassbender calls the John le Carré experience: isolation, loneliness, and the quiet dread of a performance that never ends. He plays Martian, a veteran operative whose decades undercover have left visible marks. Critics were divided on the show's measured pace, but The New York Times captured its particular power—it makes you feel what it is to love someone you can never quite trust.
What gives the conversation its urgency is that neither actor is content to keep the discussion inside the fiction. Waterston describes the present moment as a quagmire, a time when even apparently real things demand suspicion. Her concern is AI—its rapid embedding into daily life without the regulatory frameworks that govern almost everything else people consume. Fassbender is more personal: he has been fooled by misinformation online, his wife Alicia Vikander having to correct things he had already accepted as true. Together they describe a world where the volume of stories and theories outpaces anyone's ability to sort through them, and where the nature of trust has fundamentally shifted.
What troubles them most is not the technology itself but the uncertainty of its makers. Fassbender calls it scary. Waterston is direct: she does not think AI bodes well for society, and she believes harder days are ahead. These are not reflexive objections—they are people who have spent months studying the psychology of sustained deception, and they are drawing a straight line from that fictional world to this one.
There is a lighter moment when they are asked whether they would make good spies. Both laugh and say no. Fassbender explains that what struck him most in researching real undercover operatives was the permanence of the damage—once a false identity is built, it is never fully shed. For his own part, the hardest challenge in his actual life is far more ordinary: finding enough time with his family while working the hours that acting demands. The Agency returns June 21st, and its makers are offering it not as an escape from the present but as a way of seeing it more clearly.
Michael Fassbender sits down to talk about a television show, and within minutes he's describing something that feels less like entertainment and more like a warning about the world we're actually living in. The Agency, a spy thriller returning for its second season on Paramount+, follows CIA operatives who have spent years pretending to be someone else—living under false identities so complete that the line between the real person and the constructed one begins to blur and disappear. But what Fassbender and his co-star Katherine Waterston want to discuss isn't the tradecraft or the danger. It's the cost. The psychological wreckage that comes from building your entire existence on a lie.
The show, which also stars Richard Gere and is based on the acclaimed French drama The Bureau, deliberately moves away from the spy-thriller template audiences have come to expect. There are no elaborate set pieces designed to make you jump in your seat, no gadgets that solve problems in the final act. Instead, it leans into what Fassbender calls the John le Carré experience—the isolation, the loneliness, the quiet anxiety of knowing that everything you say and do is part of a performance that never ends. He plays Martian, a veteran operative whose decades undercover have worn him down in ways that are visible in his face, his voice, the way he moves through the world. When the first season premiered, critics split on whether this measured, character-driven approach was a strength or a liability. The New York Times captured the tension perfectly: the show gives you the experience of loving someone you can never quite trust, of never knowing where the performance ends and the person begins.
But here's what makes this conversation urgent: Fassbender and Waterston aren't just talking about fiction. They're talking about the actual world we're navigating right now. Waterston points out that we're living in what she calls a quagmire—a moment when even things that feel real demand suspicion. She's thinking about artificial intelligence, about how it's being embedded into the fabric of daily life without the kind of oversight that governs almost everything else we consume. "Everything else we consume is regulated," she says, "so why do we have a Wild West when it comes to AI?" Fassbender goes further. He's been caught out by misinformation online—his wife, Oscar-winning actress Alicia Vikander, has had to fact-check things he's believed and shared. He describes a landscape where stories and theories pile up in front of people faster than anyone can sort through them, where the nature of trust itself has fundamentally changed.
What worries both actors most is that the people building AI don't fully understand what they're building. Fassbender calls this scary. Waterston is blunt: she doesn't think AI bodes well for society, and she believes the worst is yet to come. They're not Luddites or alarmists—they're people who have spent months inhabiting characters built on deception, studying the psychology of people who live double lives, and they're drawing a straight line from that fictional world to the one we're actually in. The themes of The Agency—about trust, about the difficulty of knowing what's real, about the corrosive effect of sustained deception—have become less like entertainment and more like documentary.
There's a moment of levity when they're asked whether they'd make good spies themselves. Both laugh and say no. Waterston calls it terrible. Fassbender explains why: the personal sacrifices would be impossible. He researched the real undercover operatives known as "legends," the people who inspired aspects of the show, and what struck him was the permanence of the damage. Once you create that false identity, you never shed it. You lose your own personality in the process. It's nearly impossible, he says, to have a real and balanced relationship. For Fassbender, the biggest challenge in his actual life is far simpler and far more human: finding enough time for his family while working the long hours that acting demands. He feels blessed to be doing work he loves, but the math never quite adds up.
The Agency returns June 21st on Paramount+, and it arrives at a moment when its central question—what happens when you can no longer trust what you're seeing and hearing?—has moved from the realm of fiction into something that feels increasingly like a description of daily life. Fassbender and Waterston aren't selling the show as escapism. They're offering it as a mirror.
Notable Quotes
Everything else we consume is regulated, so why do we have a Wild West when it comes to AI?— Katherine Waterston
The people developing it don't even know the full potential of it and that's scary.— Michael Fassbender
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why do you think audiences keep coming back to spy stories, especially ones that move slowly and focus on character rather than action?
Because they reveal something true about what happens to people when they live a lie for years. We're fascinated by the kind of person who enters that world and what kind of person emerges from it. Martian was idealistic once. Twenty years later, his moral compass has been eroded by the things he's had to do.
Katherine mentioned we're living in a "quagmire" right now. What did she mean by that?
That even when something feels real, you have to be suspicious of it. The rise of misinformation and AI has made it genuinely hard to know what to trust. I've been caught out by false stories online myself. My wife has to fact-check things I believe.
You both seem genuinely worried about AI. Is that coming from the research you did for the show, or something else?
Both. But mostly it's that the people developing AI don't even know the full potential of it. That's what's scary. And there's no regulation. Everything else we consume is regulated, but AI is a Wild West.
Do you think the show is becoming more relevant because of these real-world problems, or were those problems always there?
They were always there. But they're accelerating. The nature of trust has changed. There are so many stories and theories in front of people now that it's hard to decipher one from the next. The show explores that.
Would you actually want to be a spy?
No. Terrible idea. The personal sacrifices would be impossible. You can't have a real relationship. Once you create that false identity, you never get rid of it. You lose yourself in it.
What surprised you most when you researched real undercover operatives?
How much it takes out of a person. The damage is permanent. That's what we wanted to show in the show—not the glamour, but the cost.