FX’s The Americans just came to an end, so it seems like an appropriate time to reflect on Felicity, the other big TV show that Keri Russell was in (the show’s 20th anniversary is also coming up in September, because the passing of time is viciously cruel). The cast of Felicity stopped by the ATX Television Festival in Austin this weekend to talk about the show, with Scott Foley (who played lovable nice guy Noel and his badass alter ego Leon) noting that most of them hadn’t seen each other since the show went off the air.
Apparently, the excitement of the reunion really got to everybody, with The Hollywood Reporter saying that Foley says he’d “love to work with everyone again” on some kind of revival since he misses them all so much, and Scott Speedman (who played lovable cool dude Ben) adding that “there’s a way to make it work.” Of course, that came after Foley and the rest of the cast had already agreed that a revival would be a bad idea, with Foley saying that Felicity was “so specific to the characters in that time of their lives that to do it again would be an injustice to the show.”
Going back to the show, Russell says that she “insisted” do creators J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves that Felicity should graduate from college in the series finale, but a last-minute extension from the network gave them a chance to make some more episodes. This opened the door for a slight bizarre flash-forward that involved Foley’s character dying, Speedman’s character turning into “kind of a turd,” and Felicity—pause for dramatic effect—going back in time.
Also, you can’t talk about Felicity without talking about the controversial haircut that Russell got in between seasons, leading to a bizarrely intense backlash. Russell says the idea came from her sending Abrams and Reeves a photo of her in a wig as a joke, leading them to ask if she’d actually cut her hair for the show. She says she has always loved the twist, if you want to call it that, explaining that it was a “typical college girl’s story” with a girl getting a dramatic and bad haircut after breaking up with a boy.
You can read more thoughts on Felicity at the THR link up above.
