Richard Madden on why Stanley Tucci is the secret to Citadel

polygon.com:

There are plenty of downsides to working for an elite spy organization — there are certain precarities involved, like death, or the downfall of your organization inadvertently leaving you with a wiped memory of who you are and what you’re capable of. Both are certainly risks the agents of Citadel take,and something Nadia Sinh and Mason Kane (Priyanka Chopra-Jonas and Richard Madden, respectively) spend the first two episodes of the show clawing their way back from, often violently fighting off those who wish them harm. Which is all to say: I get it, there’s dangers to spying that can make the whole profession semi-unappealing. But on the other hand, there’s Stanley Tucci.

Tucci has made his bones as a charmer, whether as a fashion expert and mentor (The Devil Wears Prada), a dad who steals every scene he’s in (Easy A), or the guy making Captain America who he is (Captain America: The First Avenger). He is maybe the single reason to take a job at Citadel, something Madden knows all too well. As far as he’s concerned, Tucci defined the tone of the mega budget Prime Video show.

“This is a completely new IP; we were making this from scratch, we have nothing to base it off of,” Madden tells Polygon. “And Stanley was the one that managed to really bring that tone to the scenes where we can straddle drama and action and thriller with these lighter touches, and make it funny — he’s a master of doing that.”

Tucci’s typical on-screen presence is all magnetism. But on Citadel, Tucci’s spymaster Bernard Orlick is arguably another risk (and certainly a prick) as he handles Mason’s case. He brings him up to speed by kidnapping his family, being a bit snide and biting, and generally making life a little harder for Mason than it