Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Season 1 of Citadel.

In the Russo Brothers’ first-ever global franchise, Citadel, starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden, the world’s security is at risk under the control of the nefarious and power-hungry spy agency, Manticore. As the second largest series for Prime Video, there’s a ton of talent working “at the peak of their game,” behind the scenes and in front of the camera, to bring this ambitious story to life. Collider’s Steve Weintraub spoke with one of the stars, Ashleigh Cummings (The Goldfinch), about the most recent shocking revelations of Episode 4.

In the series, Cummings plays Abby Conroy, the wife of Kyle, Madden’s alter persona bestowed to him by Citadel. According to Cummings, Abby is a person “who creates a sense of control with mundanity and stability and routine,” while Kyle is finding out from an old colleague, Bernard Orlick (played by Stanley Tucci), that he’s actually a super spy with a less-than-mundane past.

During their interview, Cummings, a self-declared “psychology nerd,” digs into the explosive Episode 4 where viewers learn that there’s more to Abby than we were led to believe. She shares a particularly life-threatening challenge she faced during production, which episode is her favorite and why, and discusses the importance of such a talented cast and crew behind the cinematic universe that is Citadel. For all of this and more, check out the full transcript below.

COLLIDER: If someone has actually never seen anything you've done before, what is the first thing you'd like them watching and why?

ASHLEIGH CUMMINGS: Oh, that's a really tough question. I think, I haven't watched it since we did it, but when I was young, I did a show called Puberty Blues, and I just think the creatives involved in that was so brilliant that I would want to celebrate them. And I think the story still has relevant elements.

Jumping into Citadel, when you signed on, how much did they just lay out for you, “Here's the character, here's what's gonna happen,” and how much were they sort of trying to hold back certain things because they were still figuring it out?

CUMMINGS: When I signed on, I hadn’t auditioned, I didn't know anything about the characters that had been offered to me, so yeah, I had no idea. I received, I think Episode 1 and Episode 4, where the reveal happens. So I didn't know, I thought I was being given like a one-line, a consolation prize, and I could choose if I wanted to play Abby, Brielle, or Celeste, who were each like a barista or a dog walker, or something that would appear in the scene and disappear. So I had no idea, and then I just read the scripts, and I mean, I would have said yes to anything that the Russos were doing. But yeah, pretty thrilled once I saw that.

Episode 4 has some pretty big reveals, and you had the script before filming, but what was it like actually filming that episode? Because you get to do a lot.

CUMMINGS: I do! I was so sick when I filmed that episode [laughs]. I got a kidney infection and then I had sepsis, which I didn't realize while we were filming. So that whole scene– I got to the hospital, and they were like, “You've got a 50% chance of survival in the next 24 hours,” so that is, like, someone dying in front of you right there. Not really, I'm being very, very dramatic, and we did pause for filming and I came back once I was better, but there's about half that interrogation scene, I was so sick, so I don't remember it. Like, I honestly don't remember it. I was so out of it, but I think it matched the intensity of what the character was going through, so it kind of worked in my favor.

So many follow-ups. Were you not going to the doctor because you were in the middle of a big show, and you're like, “I can just toughen this out?”

CUMMINGS: Yeah, and I don't recommend it. In society, we celebrate people being tough and quote-unquote “badass.” It's so stupid, it's so dumb. I wish I'd just– you know, we need to get rid of that antiquated thought that that's a tough thing. I've learned my lesson. Go to the doctor, get checked out. If you think something is wrong, something is.

I actually want to defend you, though, in terms of why you would toughen it out because this is big stuff for your character, it's a big TV show that is a lot of money, and you're probably thinking, “I don't wanna be costing the production all this money to just be told it's antibiotics.”

CUMMINGS: Big time. Yeah, definitely, and I think that was a big pressure for me. But ultimately, the producers were like, “You're a human being.” I learned that by not going to the doctors earlier and getting it more checked out, I actually cost more time off, do you know what I mean? I could have saved production a lot more days. So, I think it's a very outdated, kind of from like maybe wartime, the world wars aren’t that far behind us, and we have a lot of generations which still embrace that health attitude, but it's just outdated at this point. Big lesson to me.

No, I totally agree. Usually when you're playing a role, you're playing one character. What is it like as an actor being able to play multiple, so many different versions of this person?

CUMMINGS: So fun. I mean, I'm just such a psychology nerd anyway that it was really exciting to kind of get behind the science of these sorts of things, and examine the human condition and how, if you start with a fractured identity, how chameleonic your persona can become in order to fit into new environments. And, you know, you end up with these polar opposite human beings; one who creates a sense of control with chaos and antagonism and defensiveness and this bravado, and then one, Abby, who creates a sense of control with mundanity and stability and routine. So it was just a fascinating concept to explore, and really fun to play with different parts of oneself and explore those.

What do you think fans of Citadel are going to say after they see the season finale?

CUMMINGS: Oh, I haven't seen the season finale. I haven't seen anything after Episode 4, so I don't really know. I think fans are gonna be wanting and itching for more content because questions will continue to be asked, a lot of answers will come, but it's like Hydra; you cut off one snake head and more snake heads erupt from the wound. Some answers will come, but more questions will arise.

The Russos and your fellow co-stars all said that Episode 6 is like the game-changer, where a lot gets revealed, a lot of questions and stuff like that.

CUMMINGS: Yeah, some big stuff, some big questions of identity and conscience and morality. It goes deep.

Prime Video has put out a lot of series, and we reported this is the second biggest series in Prime Video’s history right behind The Rings of Power.

CUMMINGS: That’s absurd! I mean, it's exciting. I'm so excited. I just can't comprehend that, you know what I mean? There's some things that are too big for the brain to wrap around.

What's a scene, while making the show, that you got on the first take and you can't believe you got it, or what's a scene you thought would be super easy and ended up taking all day?

CUMMINGS: Oh, there's a scene that I think has ended up on the cutting room floor, so you probably don't want to hear about it, but there was a scene in an elevator with a bunch of us, and it was just a little chit-chat, and we were there for days [laughs]. We were there for days because we kept laughing.

Was it your fault?

CUMMINGS: It was not my fault! It wasn't my fault. I don't even know what happened. I think it was in the lion's den, there were a lot of strobing lights, it was cramped, there's smoke. I think everyone was just a bit loopy, and we ended up having to shoot that for so long. In terms of things we got on the first take, gosh– There’s stuff, again, that might not be in the final edit, like emotional things or whatever.

The Russos told me that they found a lot in the editing room, and they wanted to make it a very tight, propulsive kind of series, and that's why the episodes are like 35 minutes.

CUMMINGS: Yeah, it's so interesting, actually. It's fascinating on any project to see how you envisage something on the day, and then where it ends up in the edit and how the edit can create an entirely new show or story or subtext. It happens all the time, and it's an infinitely fascinating process to me because you can be shooting something and be reacting to something and in the edit, they'll use that footage in another context, and you've got an entirely different story. It's really amazing. Editors can make or break something, and I think they've done a really great job on this job. You're on the edge of your seat all the time.

Yeah, I think if I was an actor, and this is just me, I would be sending like a cake or doughnuts to every editor that's cutting my performance.

CUMMINGS: [Laughs] That’s such a good point!

Just to be like, “Hey, I just want you to know, I'm really looking forward to seeing what you're gonna do. Thank you so much,” you know, just being super nice.

CUMMINGS: That's a great idea. Just bribe them with sugar.

Yeah, I mean, why not? They're gonna literally shape your performance for the world to see.

CUMMINGS: And they have a hard job, and they don't get any of the credit and they spend so much time in a black cave, and they do a lot of work, a lot of shaping, and the artistry comes in the edit. Yeah, I could pick an editor's brain forever. I'm so fascinated by the process.

Yeah, I talk to a lot of directors about the editing process, and I've spoken to editors, because ultimately that's where it all comes together. So for fans of the show, what do you think would surprise them to learn about the actual making of the show?

CUMMINGS: What would be surprising? Probably just how goofy we all are, like, we would be terrible spies. We would be terrible spies. We'd be the best people, like our jobs could be a good cover, but knowing each other? Priyanka and I just goof around all the time, we'd just be hopeless. I don't know if that's very surprising, to be honest, but there you have it!

The show is six episodes, did you have a favorite of the six?

CUMMINGS: For me acting-wise, definitely [Episode 4] was the most fun for me because I had a lot of material to play with. It was just like a massive sand pit, and I got to live out all of my childhood and nerd dreams of psychology and exploring humanity and kind of the extent of myself as far as I could go. So, yeah, probably Episode 4 for me. Usually I love just being on set and watching, but because of COVID, I wasn't able to go on as much as I usually would.

Yeah, I would want to spend time on set and just look at the cool shit.

CUMMINGS: Oh, my gosh, yeah, I did. The first day I got to see Richard do some of the snow stuff and it was honestly like a theme park. It was absurd.

Well, one of the things that really impressed me about the series, especially the first episode, is that it's like movie-scale action on a TV show.

CUMMINGS: It was cinematic from the get-go, and [Newton Thomas] Sigel, who is the cinematographer and director, he's got such a brilliant eye and such care. And the lighting team, they were all amazing. And so, you have these incredible technicians behind the camera, as well as creators; they do a huge portion of the storytelling, as well, and they are very attuned to, creatively and character-wise, what's going on.

Then you have a stunt team who are geniuses and also don't get enough credit because they are choreographers and they are storytelling. The stuff that they do is so much more in-depth than I ever knew, to be honest. Like, I didn't know that they were thinking and informing the cinematography team about what would look best camera-wise, and you know, constructing a story within a dance, really. It's big, and they think about character as well. They informed a lot of my character choices with the philosophies behind the martial arts that they chose for my character, and so on. So, yeah, you have just like the people at the peak of their game all collaborating on this thing, and it's gonna be cinematic.

I love when the camera flips. What do you think about all the reveals in Episode 4 and what happens with your character, and what audiences are going to think?

CUMMINGS: Well, quick shoutout to (cinematographer) [Geoffrey] Haley for that camera flip because I think that that shot really epitomizes and is a metaphor for everything that happens in the show and Episode 4. It was brilliant to watch him work because he was so passionate about that camera move and it's a very technical technical shot.

For Episode 4, I think what I love about Episode 4 is that it explores the gray areas of a human being. In spy genre, in a lot of these kind of superhero action worlds, we’re often presented with characters with a great deal of duality, good, bad hero, chiaroscuro, light and dark. And this episode just explodes all of that because these are all deeply flawed characters because of their own trauma, and, you know, we get a glimpse of that in Celeste's backstory, and we start to uncover little pieces of Nadia and Mason's history, and so on. But these people are really vulnerable internally, and then they make choices from that place of vulnerability that can be really horrendous. And so, I like that we aren't presenting necessarily likable characters. Our heroes aren't people that we're always gonna be rooting for. Our villains are also some people that we can understand why they might make certain choices. And yeah, I think the idea that nothing is as it seems is far more than an enigmatic statement that exists in the spy world. Not to, like, uproot the very axioms and stability upon which we operate, but in the world there is a lot more to people and society than what we take for granted at face value, we're very complex. So I’m exited to explore that.

Citadel is available to stream on Prime Video, with new episodes releasing every Friday until the Season 1 finale on May 26.