Curiosidades

The premise of this series is partly based on the true story that broke in 2010 of a cell of Russian Sleeper agents who had been "hiding in plain sight" in the United States for decades (also known as the "Spy Swap of 2010"). Several of them had children, coworkers, friends, and neighbors who all had no idea that they were spies. These agents were ultimately returned to Russia in a trade for some Americans that Russia was holding.

Joseph Weisberg created the show. Weisberg worked in the Central Intelligence Agency's directorate of operations from 1990 to 1994. As a former agent, any script written by Weisberg must go in front of the CIA Publications Review Board.

In real life, Annet Mahendru speaks six languages (German, English, Russian, French, Persian, and Hindi) due to a nomadic upbringing all across the globe. She joked that she was hired because the producers thought she was an actual spy.

The actors who play married couple Elizabeth and Philip Jennings on this show, Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys respectively, also started dating in their real lives (in 2014). In January 2016, Us Weekly reported that Russell was four months pregnant with their first child together, and that summer, Russell gave birth to a son, Sam.

Former real-life KGB sleeper agent Jack Barsky, who visited the set, has said that his situation was similar to Philip and Elizabeth's in that FBI agents lived in a home adjacent to his for six months, but unlike the Jennings and Beeman families, the FBI never befriended Barsky over the three-year period that they investigated him in the mid-1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, Barsky was allowed to stay in the USA after it was determined that he was no longer active and he agreed to share everything he knew about Soviet spy methods with the CIA; the agent who moved next door to him eventually became the godfather of Barsky's daughter. In terms of the overall realism of the series, Barsky rated it 5 out of 10 for content.