The highly-anticipated second season of Tehran began on May 6 with the first two episodes. The Apple TV+ series is picking up almost immediately where the first season left off. This season, Hollywood icon Glenn Close has joined the cast as Marjan. HollywoodLife spoke EXCLUSIVELY with creator and executive producer Dana Eden, as well as director and executive producer Daniel Syrkin about what to expect.
“Two months have passed and Tamar has been in hiding along with her lover boyfriend Milad, who is an Iranian. She’s a Mossad agent. So we have already some new tension. Tamar is just about to leave Tehran when she’s recruited by the Mossad to do one last mission,” Daniel told HollywoodLife during the show’s recent press day. “Of course, this mission becomes complicated as it should be in any good story. Tamar finds herself again sucked back into international espionage. This time she’s conflicted with her love interest Milad, who is a local guy, and we’re not sure that Mossad likes it very much. She has a personal vendetta, too. She gets to become, I would say, a more sophisticated spy in this season.”
As Tamar evolves, she will cross paths with a new character named Marjan. HollywoodLife asked the EPs about the journey to get Academy Award nominee Glenn Close on the show.
“We had Marjan’s character, and we wanted a Westener character that lives in Iran for many years and is disillusioned from the regime and becomes a Mossad agent. We started to think about the casting of this role and, thanks to Apple, we could broaden our possibilities,” Dana said. “We understood that we can get Glenn Close. For us, it was like science fiction at first, But when we understood that it was a realistic possibility, we couldn’t think about anybody else. And, of course, Glenn loved the first season. She wanted the challenge of learning Farsi, and working on a non-American set in Europe, in Athens with Israelis, Iranians, Greeks, so for her, it was a challenge and I admire her for that.”
While Tamar is a Mossad agent, Marjan is a local agent. “It puts her in a sort of inferiority despite her being older and more seasoned,” Daniel teased about Marjan. “This brings some tension between the two characters, right? The younger woman, the more experienced woman, the true Israeli versus the woman who is Iranian-British and works with the Mossad. But there is a building relationship that starts almost at animosity and becomes warmer and warmer as Marjan becomes a sort of a mentor for Tamar. If you remember in the first season, we discussed Tamar lost her mother and maybe Marjan becomes a sort of a motherly figure for her. There’s tension there as there should be, but there’s also a lot of emotion and sweet Niv Sultan and commanding Glenn Close together or sweet Glenn Close and tough Niv Sultan at times is a great mixture.”
As for Milad, it’s going to be a “tough” season for him. “He has a very big conflict because he loves Tamar, and Tamar goes back to the Mossad. So as an Iranian, what is he going to do? Is he going to live with it? Is it something that he can accept? Is Tamar’s causes similar to his causes? So I think Milan’s journey in this season is really interesting, and it is a very big part of the story,” Dana revealed. New episodes of Tehran season 2 will drop weekly on Apple TV+.