Jodie Turner-Smith said she studied and began learning Arabic for Samia in The Agency, turning a role in the Paramount+ spy thriller into a language-and-culture exercise as much as a performance. She said the goal was simple: build the character with as much authenticity as possible.
“Something that I really love about the show is that everybody really cares about making sure that we're bringing as much authenticity to it as possible,” she said when speaking exclusively with Radio Times for Pass the Mic. Turner-Smith added: “We had a Sudanese cultural consultant, and I did also study and begin learning Arabic for this as well.”
Samia in season 2
Turner-Smith has played Samia since the first episode of The Agency, and she reprises the role in season 2. The new season pushes the character into a harder place: Samia is taken as a political prisoner in Sudan, while Michael Fassbender’s Martian ends season 1 completely compromised and forced to work as a double agent for the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service.
That pairing matters because the character’s cultural preparation is happening at the same time the story gives her less freedom, not more. Turner-Smith said she always thinks it is important not just to learn her lines in another language but to try to dive into the language, and she said she tried to do everything she could to explore what it would mean to be a woman like Samia.
Arabic for Samia
“So, I tried to do everything that I could to explore what it would mean to be a woman like Samia – to come from a background like hers, to have been raised the way that she was, and also to be considering the things that she is in her head,” she said. She also said that she always seeks to honour whichever culture she gets the privilege to embody, and that she talks to friends, colleagues, and scholars to develop the personal ideology of a character.
For viewers, the practical takeaway is that Samia’s season 2 arc is being built with more than costume and dialogue in mind. The show is leaning on language work and cultural consultation to keep the role grounded, even as the plot moves her into detention in Sudan.
What remains in play is how that prison storyline will shape the rest of season 2. The preparation points to a character being treated as a serious dramatic center, not a side thread, and that puts the next episodes under pressure to match the care Turner-Smith says went into the role.
