Love gets complicated for a grifter and a Fed in ABC's 'The Company You Keep'
It's love at first sight for a con artist and a CIA agent - but neither knows what the other does for a living in a stylish heist thriller coming to ABC.
In "The Company You Keep," premiering Sunday, Feb. 19, Milo Ventimiglia ("This Is Us") executive produces and stars as Charlie, who would just as soon exit the family business of grifting for good.
One night at a bar, he encounters Emma (Catherine Haena Kim, "FBI") and the attraction is immediate. She's an undercover CIA agent who happens to be in pursuit of the vengeful criminal who holds Charlie's family debts. This puts them on a collision course and forces them to reckon with the lies they've told to save themselves and their families from disaster.
From showrunners Julia Cohen ("A Million Little Things") and Phil Klemmer ("DC's Legends of Tomorrow"), "The Company You Keep" is based on the Korean series "My Fellow Citizens" and also stars William Fichtner, Sarah Wayne Callies, Polly Draper, Freda Foh Shen and Tim Chiou.
For Ventimiglia, "Company" comes on the heels of his six-season run as family patriarch Jack Pearson on "This Is Us," a character completely unlike Charlie, which he found enticing.
"There was something dynamic about that; there was something to discover," he explains. "I mean, playing Jack I discovered all I could as an actor with that character and I thought he was fully realized. With Charlie, he's someone who kind of needs to be forgettable so that he's not targeted by the people that he's conning but, at the same time, he's got to be so charming and persuasive and he has to reflect the people that he's conning.
"It's kind of the basics of a con," he continues. "You know, if your mark, your target is sad, you're sad; if they're angry, you're angry; if they're happy, you're happy."
As for Kim as Emma, she inhabits a character that comes from a family of Asian American aristocrats who can't understand their daughter's life choices. She's a strong woman, but not without her flaws, which was a big draw for the actress.
"It's really fun," she says, "because she comes from this high-powered political family known as the Asian American Kennedys and she wants nothing to do with it. ... She's the black sheep of the family and nobody knows that she's secretly CIA.
"She's a real character," Kim continues. "You know, she's not meant to be perfect and she's just trying to navigate love after a recent heartbreak and family and career just like we all are."