The true story of double agent Kim Philly shook the western world’s intelligence agencies in the 60s when the Cold War was still brewing vigorously. However, this wasn’t the main focus of New York Times best seller, A Spy Among Friends, penned by Ben Macintyre and now a television series on MGM+.

Alex Cary (Homeland, Lie To Me), who adapted the novel, shifted his focus on the story of two lifelong friends Nick Elliott (Damian Lewis) and Kim Philby (Guy Pearce) after the latter defects from British Intelligence to the KGB.

“I think the issues of friendship and class in Britain at that time, how they influenced espionage and world events, as well as this friendship was my starting point for the TV series,” comments Cary.

The opaque world of espionage relies on secrets and assuming identities to infiltrate the enemy; in this case the Soviets Union. Perhaps they might even cross over. In doing so, there is always the risk that spies might sympathize with the enemy, or eventually unite with them. “It’s a broad question because there’s no bottom to that well in terms of people’s personal or individual psychologies,” adds the writer.

“I think a lot of it depends on one’s ability to believe the truth that you create for yourself to actually believe it,” he continues. “When people use semantics to skirt around the actual truth of something… just speaking that language is halfway to believing your own lie. And I think that that is key to dramatizing it,” Cary ponders. Reframing ideological truths by embellishment or meticulous omissions, influences our world views. This manipulation gives views access to each side’s point of view.

Ostensibly, the first and last episodes of any television series are the most significant in ensuring viewer investment. The six episode TV version of A Spy Among Friends wastes little time in showing Philby escape to Moscow rather than building up to such a ground-shaking event. Cary deliberately rushed through this since it is already a well-known event.

“What I was principally interested in was Nicholas Elliott’s friendship with Kim Philby and the aftermath of the betrayal. In other words, how did Philby think or feel about that betrayal after a twenty-three year long friendship? What was he going to do about it? And where did friendship remain? Was friendship eroded by all of this? I just felt that it was a very interesting canvas on which to examine their friendship.” Then Elliott had to face the suspicious minds of British Intelligence who doubted that he couldn’t have not know anything about his close friend’s defection.

Were They Ever True Friends?

A betrayal will also leave both men confused. Was their friendship authentic or was it transactional in the line of duty?  “I hope that you get the impression they did feel something. Did that erase the friendship emotionally for them or the values of that friendship while it was being carried out?” Alex Cary doesn’t claim to know the answers, but he does understand good drama. “I think often it’s good to ask questions in a story rather than give the answers. Let the audience make their own conclusions. My personal feeling is yes, the friendship did mean something. And for Elliot, I would have thought it was both devastating and embarrassing as well.”

During the final episode of A Spy Among Friends, Philby invites Elliott to meet him in Berlin. Could their broken friendship heal? “I think if they reunited, I think Philby would try and plead his case on the grounds of their friendship and the fact that you can have political and ideological disagreements, but the friendship is something that hopefully would transcend that.”

Cary doesn’t believe Elliott would be so easily forgiving of Philby. Elliott might counter argue, “We are fellow Englishmen and you have betrayed our country. And by betraying our country, you have betrayed me. So, it’s the end. A friendship can no longer transcend that,” postulates Cary. Much of the Philby-Elliott dynamic can be likened to an extra-marital affair. Can a couple truly ever recover from it?

Then there’s Lily Thomas (Anna Maxwell Martin) who investigated the defection. “Elliott is challenged by Lily Thomas and MI5 on a technical espionage level since he technically helped Philby escape to Moscow.”

“Then it crosses over into the friendship ‘clubby’ MI6 part of it, since both Philby and Elliott are M16 agents. The stakes for Elliott are treasonous. He needs to find a way through them, not only to exonerate himself, but to at least cover for MI6. He also needs to arise from these ashes to a degree with some sort of victory.” Elliott was looking for a practical victory that wouldn’t topple MI6 and a personal victory of deciding who his friends should be. “That is personified through Lily Thomas, who represents the elite types in MI5 should be fighting for.”

Lily Thomas (Anna Maxwell Martin) Photo courtesy of MGM+

Cary carefully dissects the levels of villainy in A Spy Among Friends while she’s in damage control. How could Elliott not suspect anything? Was he wilfully ignorant or covering for his buddy, even on a subconscious level.

It’s convenient to simply dismiss Philby as a traitor that should be quartered and strung up. All did not go so well in Moscow for him. The Soviets didn’t trust him. They saw him as a functionary pawn to gather Western intelligence. “I was very interested in Philby just in terms of what sort of person he was. How much dignity could I give him? The drama becomes more interesting if everybody to a degree is right. Right versus right is more interesting dramatically than wrong versus right because wrong versus right is just obvious,” claims Cary.

Despite his high treason, viewers might have felt some pity for Philby when he arrived in Moscow. “The reward he got in Russia was that he was treated as a professional liar and therefore mistrusted and put out to pasture which was, worse than death for someone like that.”

Adapting The Novel

“I read the book quite a few years before somebody even suggested that I adapt it. In terms of adapting it, I did not want to just do a facsimile of the book because it didn’t really lend itself to dramatic screen storytelling. I wanted to find a way to expand on the book,” explains Cary.

“The book deals with Nick and Kim’s relationship and their four days in Beirut. But it doesn’t deal with the aftermath of the betrayal. So, I took this as my area of license to invent and imagine and reach back into the book and cherry pick moments to illustrate the forward journey.” Alex Cary didn’t so much want to reimagine the story, but rather, to create context for the events.

A Spy Among Friends is told via a series of extended flashbacks in the TV series. “I didn’t really look at these as flashbacks, but telling stories in a different time continuum, not necessarily connected to individual memories of characters. And sometimes they switch between terms of point of view. The perspectives switch owners.”

Philby’s recollection of events were often devious and misleading rather than being outright false. Cary quotes episode four when he’s sitting alone in his apartment mourning his mother’s death. Nicholas and James Jesus Angleton (Stephen Kunken) from the CIA visit to console him.

Philby says to them, “‘Have you ever revealed your true self beyond our small circle of friends?’ This is such a huge lie in the moment because he’s colluding with them as fellow spies saying, ‘Oh, poor us, we can never be completely honest to the world,’ while also not being honest with them.”

Alex Cary chose a fractured timeline structure to tell his story while trying to keep it simple. “The whole thing was challenging to write. It was a bit of a puzzle. But I have to say, it’s the most satisfying experience of writing for television I think that I’ve had because it forced me to make every scene salient. You can jump around with that structure but every single scene in this thing is a cog that’s connected to another one that makes it all work.” During the editing process, he tested each scene by asking if the whole thing would fall apart if it was removed.

Philby and Elliott’s thorny relationship can best be illustrated in a the scenes when they went out on the balcony in the safe house in Beirut. Elliott says, “You’d better give me a fucking good reason why I shouldn’t want you dead.” Philby retorts, “I was protecting you from the Americans. I came here as your friend.”

Writing an espionage thriller heavily relies on the rules of any story. “Understand your characters, what they want, and why they are doing it,” advises Cary. The screenwriter writes copious character notes before commencing the screenplay. “I just keep writing and eventually something takes shape.”