Fair Spooks

Two Australian actresses have appeared as spies recently and both covered themselves in glory. The first, Genevieve O'Reilly in 'Spooks' playing an American femme fatale ostensibly working for the CIA but with dark undertones which lead her to hurtle male mentors straight off balconies. This was such a shock that I had to rewind to see how it could have happened. Her calm impassive beauty is absolute classic siren stuff and surprisingly, I have worked with her on 'All Saints'. She did a season for them and I remember her sitting in the green room looking as impressive under those horrible bright lights as she does on screen on Saturday nights for ABC TV.

Now, in 'Fair Game' Naomi Watts takes on the real life spy story of Valerie Plame. This extraordinary woman has two master degrees, speaks four languages and is drop dead gorgeous. Her degrees seem to have been taken in part to facilitate her deep cover work as a young business exec and it is no surprise that she worked in woman's fashion while waiting for the CIA to respond to her application. This is indeed the stuff of legend and the scene in a car, when she tells a bumptious young business man who she really is and what his options are (limited and bad) is one of the most exhilarating I have ever seen. Apparently Plame was on the set a lot and that in itself must have been intimidating but Watts has that magic ingredient which she shares with O'Reilly. They have the grace to hold themselves. They have a calm demeanor in the face of madness and it gives them great power as performers.

Strength with beauty is a rare thing. These women have it in spades. They play both sides of the moral game and you are left in no doubt that they could. We've come a long way from Mata Hari.

Click here to see a trailer of 'Fair Game'