The Real-Life Event That Inspired Adam Glass To Create In From The Cold - Exclusive
Adam Glass is no stranger to quality television. He's served as a producer and writer on shows as varied as "Supernatural," "Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders," and "The Chi." Now, as the creator of the eight-episode Netflix series "In From the Cold," he's brought a new action-packed spy story to the small screen. The show centers on Jenny Franklin (Margarita Levieva), a seemingly unassuming New Jersey mom whose past as a KGB operative with some very special skills comes back to haunt her during a vacation to Europe with her 17-year-old daughter. Forced to team up with the CIA to root out the people behind a series of shocking crimes, Jenny is the rare TV mom — and woman over 35 — who can hold her own in pretty much any situation, whether she's investigating a mind-bending mystery or engaged in a knock-down, drag-out fight with trained assassins.
"In From the Cold" is a twisty thriller that will keep you guessing right up until the last moments of the Season 1 finale, yet the show has much humbler roots. As Glass shared with Looper during an exclusive interview, he found inspiration for Jenny and the story that surrounds her in his family life, and especially from watching his wife's reaction to their children leaving home.
From emptynester to super-spy
Almost every parent goes through it: After their children reach maturity, they leave the house to go to college, take a job, or start a family of their own. After years of hands-on involvement in their children's safety and well-being, parents must figure out what to do with the next stage of their lives. This was exactly the situation Glass and his wife recently found themselves in.
"I am recently an empty nester," Glass revealed. "My kids are leaving the house. My wife is a woman [in her] mid-40s. I was watching what she was starting to go through as she transitioned [from] mom to 'Now what's for me and who am I going to be in this world?'"
Glass realized this transition was particularly challenging for his wife due to the way society views women – and the observation took him in an unexpected direction. "Unfortunately, in our society, women are labeled with this expiration date, which is bulls***," Glass explained. "And I started to think to myself, 'What if my wife' — because I'm a writer, and I'm crazy — 'What if my wife was an ex-spy? What if she had a secret past? Things I didn't know about?' The story started to go into all these different places."
From there, "In From the Cold" was born, a show that tells a rousing spy tale while showcasing how potent, smart, and sexy moms truly are. "It also, for me, was a way to show the power and strength of moms and of women of a certain age who've been told by society that they're supposed to just go into the fog," Glass noted. "And it's like, 'No.' What if you had to revisit your past and what if you had to do things that you haven't done in a long time?"
"In From the Cold" is now streaming on Netflix.