Charlie Cox Talks Spy Drama 'Treason' and Creating a Morally Gray Hero

In Treason, Charlie Cox plays an intelligence agent thrust into a leadership position only to be drawn into a conspiracy that puts both his family and career at risk when he is accused of being a double agent.

The show, which premieres on Netflix December 26, was "impossible to turn down," Cox told Newsweek, thanks to creator Matt Charman's surprising script and his deep understanding, and appreciation for, the spy genre.

A five-part limited series, the show follows Cox's Adam Lawrence as he tries to grapple with being the head of British intelligence service MI6 while dealing with enemies on all sides, like Olga Kurylenko's Russian spy Kara Yerzova, who could be a friend or foe.

Charlie Cox Talks Spy Drama Treason and Creating a Morally Gray Hero

In 2015, Charman was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay with the film Bridge of Spies, which he wrote alongside Joel and Ethan Coen. Treason marks the writer's return to the world of espionage.

Cox said this made him want to be a part of Treason, which also stars Oona Chaplin as Adam's wife Maddy and Ciarán Hinds as Adam's predecessor as head of MI6, Sir Martin Angelis.

"When you have the opportunity to work with someone who's kind of a master in their field it's an opportunity that it's almost impossible to turn down," Cox said of Charman. "Bridge of Spies is one of my favorite movies of the last decade, and Matt knows that world arguably better than any writer out there.

"So, it was a real honor to be involved in a project with him and to get to explore the themes of that project through the eyes of someone who knows it so well."

Charman's script constantly surprised Cox, so much so that the actor learned "to be unsurprised by how surprised" he was.

"Every script that came through was thrilling and exciting, and kind of exceeded my expectations in terms of where the drama was going, and where the story was going to end up," he went on. "So that's when you know you're on something that you're proud to be on because, as an audience member, I'm reading the scripts and I'm devouring them in the same way that, later on down the road, a viewer will watch them, so when you are excited and surprised by what you're reading that's a really good sign."

Cox was also fascinated by the way the show constantly challenged the viewers' perception of Adam, as the story is designed to make them question where his loyalties lie and if he could, truly, be capable of treason as he has been accused of.

Of his character, the Daredevil star said: "I think it could have been really easy to have a hero who, at the start of the story, we discover he has been framed for something and then the story is 'how does he prove his innocence?' This is a template that we've seen many times and works really well, and is incredibly thrilling to watch, but what I liked about what Matt did with Adam is that there was ambiguity around his moral center.

"He does have a past that is perhaps not as clean as he would like it to be, and what we were asking the audience to do is, almost subconsciously, decide whether this is a man who we could trust, who ultimately was trying to do the right thing and in doing so some innocent parties were injured.

"Or was he out there for himself and didn't really care about the consequences, and was trying to just make a name for himself and influence his career in a positive way at the expense of other people—and ultimately his country?

"And that, for me, was really interesting, and certainly a good challenge as an actor to have a character who we identify with, we feel for, we root for, we want him to succeed and yet we're aware that he hasn't always been the best version of himself, he's an antihero in some ways."

Adam is a "morally gray" character, Cox added, and that made him "more realistic" than others in the genre, but what he found the most challenging "was walking that tightrope of the antihero."

The actor wanted to "paint a picture of a world that is not black and white" through Treason, he said: "There's a gray area and trying to do the right thing, and doing the right thing, sometimes are not as easy as they seem."

On Working with Olga Kurylenko, Oona Chaplin and Ciaran Hinds

Cox also heaped praise on his co-stars, Kurylenko, Chaplin and Hinds, saying they added to the richness of the story.

The actor had previously worked with Kurylenko in 2011's There Be Dragons. Though they didn't share scenes in that film they became friends, which meant building the relationship between Adam and Kara was easy.

Also Hinds was "such a hero" to Cox that every scene felt like a "pinch yourself" moment for the Stardust actor: "He's just so kind, and so fine and funny, and generous with his spirit and time.

"So, yeah, it was a real honor, those are the moments in your career where you just have to pinch yourself because you're getting the opportunity to have these long, interesting, rich scenes with one of the great actors of his generation."

And he called Chaplin an "absolute delight" to work with, he said: "We had such fun playing husband and wife, we had a really fun dynamic. We were almost immediately great friends and the chemistry between us felt really natural and easy, and honest.

"I can't say enough good things about her, that's a really, really important character because so much of what we do in this show is we present the world out there, the exciting espionage MI6 world, but what we do differently, hopefully, is that we then take that drama and we bring it into the house, into the family home and see how it affects the family and the family dynamic.

"And so it's really important that Oona's character was the heartbeat really of the whole show, and she's just such a tremendous actor, and person, and it was just a delight. All of those scenes with her were my favorite ones."

Treason will premiere on Netflix on December 26.