Today, Prime Video is dropping the first two episodes of the world’s first global franchise television series, Citadel. From executive producers Joe and Anthony Russo, the spy thriller series stars Richard Madden (Game of Thrones) and Priyanka Chopra Jonas (Quantico) who spoke with Collider’s Steve Weintraub about the show’s massive action set pieces, how the worlds interconnect, and more.

Citadel begins eight years after the titular global intelligence agency is betrayed by one of its own members in favor of an organization called Manticore. With Citadel’s security breached, two agents, Mason Kane (Madden) and Nadia Sinh (Chopra Jonas), have their minds wiped and are given secret identities. Now, when Kane runs into an old colleague and friend, Bernard Orlick, played by Stanley Tucci, he agrees to help stop Manticore’s move to take control of the world’s security, but he’ll have to reactivate fellow operative, Nadia, first.

With two other installments in the pipeline, both the Italian and Indian Citadel, Madden and Chopra Jonas tease where else in the world they want to film and discuss their favorite of the six episodes, though Madden clarifies that “every episode has a big chunk of the journey.” The series’ main focus is the storytelling, but given the espionage nature of the material, Citadel features cinematic action set pieces right out of the gate that Madden attributes to the Russo’s, adding, “...they can do this better than anyone.” For all of this and more, check out the interview in the player, or you can read the full transcript below.

COLLIDER: First of all, congratulations. I've seen the first three episodes and if I had Episodes 4, 5, and 6, I would have already watched. I like starting with a fun question and it's going to be at you, [Priyanka]. You recently worked with Celine Dion [in Love Again]. What is it like being able to text Celine Dion?

PRIYANKA CHOPRA JONAS: [Laughs] Yeah, I mean, I feel like I've really arrived. It's really cool, especially when she responds because you can text people, but when they respond to you? And when Celine actually sent me a response, I was like, “Wow, I actually know her now.” That's an achievement.

She's incredible.

CHOPRA JONAS: She's amazing.

The series is six episodes. Which is the episode that you guys are most looking forward to fans seeing?

RICHARD MADDEN: It's going to be 6. We plant so many seeds throughout the show and jump through so many timelines. Everything collides, and all the payoffs happen in the sixth episode. I mean, every episode has a big chunk of the journey, but I love Episode 6.

And you agree?

CHOPRA JONAS: I would say that that's a hard one to pick, but I have to agree with Richard. So many questions get answered, and you have so many other questions by Episode 6 because you're so invested in everyone's stories, and there are some amazing revelations to look forward to.

One of the things that I was really impressed with was the first episode because you guys were staging movie-style action on a TV show. That is not easy to accomplish. For both of you, could you talk about doing an action set piece like that right from the beginning and setting up this big thing?

MADDEN: I think the Russo’s at the helm of that makes it easy because they can do this better than anyone. For me, it was great for that to kick off the show because as an actor, you get informed by these big sequences. We’re thrown into: who are these people? How do they interact physically, verbally? What are the stakes of their life and situation? How do they handle the environment they're in? So it was daunting, but it makes you make decisions about who these people are and try to show the audience who these two are together, their relationship. From the very beginning, you're thrust into their world.

What was it like for you?

CHOPRA JONAS: I think that's what was exciting about it for me. I mean, I'm a features girl, I love movie magic, and to be able to now, in this changing environment where people are consuming their media – and that's fortunate or unfortunate – on their tablets, on their phones, and streamers, give people access around the world. So the pro of it is that people are being able to access entertainment from everywhere, anywhere, and I guess that's what's really exciting to me is to be able to have– this is a big old movie. It's like six episodes, it's a movie. We've shot it like a movie, and it's just been spliced up, so it's like a movie on your TV. I think it's very cool.

One of the things that I'm actually really looking forward to about the series is that there is an Italian version and an Indian version, and it's all interconnected, but I like that it's a world show. So I have to ask, are your characters making an appearance on those other two series?

MADDEN: I can't tell you that.

Blink if it's true.

MADDEN: Not going to blink! No, I hope so. I hope we get to do some crossover things as big as this world is.

CHOPRA JONAS: I’d love to go to Tuscany. I choose Tuscany!

MADDEN: There’s Tuscany, I feel like there should be a Citadel: Hawaii Beach version. That would be nice to pop into.

CHOPRA JONAS: There are stories and threads that get pulled. We can't really specifically speak to that, but there are things that you’ll feel, and you can watch all of them by themselves and not feel the need to connect them. But if you choose to, it'll be really a fun little nugget that you'll find all over.

I enjoy both of your work, and I'm curious, if you have a huge dramatic or emotional scene on a Monday morning, how early on are you actually preparing to film that scene? Are you doing it as soon as you get the script? Is it over the weekend where you really start laser focusing? If you could both maybe take me through your process a little bit?

CHOPRA JONAS: I know he has a process.

MADDEN: My process changes on every job, I suppose. Time and days cease to exist when you're filming, really. So Monday morning might as well be Thursday evening. You kind of have all these scenes, all these moments, and the character in your head all the time, just kind of like soup. And until you have to engage with that moment, I think sometimes if you overthink these things, you can mess it up by kind of over-preparing for that.

I mean, Priyanka is brilliant at being beautifully present. She can just grab something and engage with it.

CHOPRA JONAS: But I think it comes from what you're saying. At least my process – and working with Richard, I feel like that's how he works, too – is familiarize [yourself] so much with your character that you don't have to think about a scene. You just know this person so well. You know how they're going to react when they're put in a situation, what their reaction will be to someone, what their reaction will be to an environment. So whatever is thrown at them, it's never an isolated emotion anyway. You can't be like, “I'm angry,” or, “I'm sad.” There's multiple things that are happening. So it's just informed because you know the parameters of your character, I think.

The first two episodes of Citadel are now streaming on Prime Video, with subsequent episodes releasing weekly.