Debora Cahn came up with the idea for “The Diplomat” after interviewing an ambassador. At the time, he was working on “Homeland,” where the production team would spend time interviewing experts from various fields to help create the show.

“He came to talk about his work in Pakistan,” Cahn said. “And two minutes after we started talking, I wrote, ‘It’s a TV show.’”

That series became Netflix’s “The Diplomat,” starring Keri Russell as Kate Wyler, the newly appointed U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom and a select group of career diplomats to deal with an international crisis. The series premiered on the streaming service in April 2023, and its second season will premiere on Thursday. The third season has already been greenlit.

“Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal spoke to Cahn about the show’s creation, workplace culture and real-life State Department reactions. The following is a transcript of the speech.

Kai Ryssdal: You’ve been on TV for a while. “The West Wing,” “Homeland” are a lot of things, but this is your first job as boss. I too want to know what it’s like to be the boss of a high-profile show.

Debora Cahn: So a lot of people create their first show a little bit earlier in their career. I waited a long time, partly because I lived in Los Angeles, and then I moved to New York, and if you weren’t in Los Angeles at the time, the idea of ​​working long distance wouldn’t have even occurred to me. business. So I put my showmanship ambitions aside for about a decade, but I watched really carefully what these wonderful people I was working with were doing, and I knew going into it and all the pitfalls and how to avoid it. He made mistakes and then he made every mistake. I was so convinced that I had taught myself how to avoid them.

-Ryssdal: You keep most of the money, right? So, you will decide all the decisions.

-Cahn: Like that. Yes, it’s fun. I must say this is a good job. I enjoy this.

-Ryssdal: Isn’t it scary?

-Cahn: This is very scary. But at a certain point I remembered that I actually knew more about this show than most people do. In fact, I always panic going into interviews because I think: What if I have nothing to say about the show? And then I realized that I was actually the world’s expert on the television show “The Diplomat.” So you know it finally works.

-Ryssdal: We were talking about this interview and how we could make this a “Marketplace” interview, right? We always try to find a “Marketplace” angle.

-Cahn: You know, I was wondering about that too.

-Ryssdal: Here’s what we came up with, I’m glad you asked. We decided that this is actually a workplace drama, and we are a show about the workplace, among many other things. So when you kind of sat down – actually, you probably didn’t sit down and fully flesh this thing out. What was your process to arrive at the hazelnut graphic that was the idea for this show?

-Cahn: There were many contributing features. When I left “The West Wing,” I said, I want to do this with the whole world. And then while I was working on “Homeland,” this ambassador came to talk to us. We met with many experts from many different fields, and he came to talk about his work in Pakistan. And two minutes after we started talking, I wrote this – I still have it in my notebook – I wrote: ‘It’s a TV series.’ As I talked to more people in this field, the stories he told weren’t so unusual. And I thought, how come nobody knows what these people are doing?

-Ryssdal: Can we talk about Keri Russell for a minute?

-Cahn: Oh yes.

-Ryssdal: Look, I said this before we started rolling the tape, I’m a huge fan of the show. I really enjoy this. Keri is amazing, Rufus Sewell, David Gyasi and the whole cast, and I want to get to the chemistry of that as soon as possible. But did you write this with Keri in mind?

-Cahn: NO.

-Ryssdal: Oh interesting.

-Cahn: I didn’t. Then when we started talking about casting, someone suggested Keri and I said she was an amazing actress. I love his work but it is so powerful and sculptural. She’s the Americans’ Elizabeth, so she’s in control. I’m writing some kind of itchy, twitchy, neurotic (person) and I couldn’t see it. And the manager I worked with said just talk. See how it goes. We’re switching to Zoom. In 30 seconds. And I was like, oh my god, that was Kate. She is so down to earth and comfortable in her own body, laughing at herself every second, and relatable. And I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s Kate.’

-Ryssdal: And then in casting the rest of this cast, one of the reasons why this show works for me is because the chemistry is good, I think, probably for a lot of people, and probably for a lot of shows as well. The actors and characters have a very good relationship. How do you do this? Is this just a random choice? Should I interview the casting director instead of you?

-Cahn: Probably. (Name) Julie Schubert, incredible casting director. You know, some of this is just luck. Carrie and Rufus took an immediate liking to each other. And what we were casting for was team players. Honestly, I’m very aware that no matter what’s going on in the program, there needs to be a welcoming place for everyone to work. And for sure… Okay, if we’re talking about workplaces, certain ecosystems develop that are built around a single CEO, creator, or leader, where there’s a lot of dysfunction that revolves around supporting that single person’s process. And I think the work you get from a group is so much better if everyone realizes that everyone there is a human being to contribute creativity and there’s a family at home and we’re lucky to be able to do that. I think this energy creates a certain lightness, playfulness and ease in the interaction of the entire cast.

-Ryssdal: I in the navy. I was actually in flight school when “Top Gun” came out, and of course when “Top Gun” came out the general vibe was: ‘Oh, naval aviation, this is the coolest thing ever.’ As you may or may not be aware, I was at the State Department many years ago.

-Cahn: I didn’t know this. What have you done?

-Ryssdal: I was abroad and at embassies in Ottawa and Beijing. Ottawa is a beautiful place, not too far. Beijing is obviously quite far away.

-Cahn: So what was your role?

-Ryssdal: I was stamping visas and doing ordinary things. I was a brand new petty officer. Nothing exciting.

Cahn: Oh, this is so exciting.

-Ryssdal: Anyway, life was good. What was the reaction of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to you?

-Cahn: They were really happy. I think they were horrified when they first heard about us, as they should be, and we wanted to be as true to the essence of what they were doing and the intention behind it as we could. Someone recently put it as authentic rather than unrealistic, and I think that’s the right way to describe the goal. And, you know, we’ve had people come up to us and say, ‘Wow, my family is just like my family, now they understand what I’m doing,’ and that’s what we want.