CBS

"This story didn't take place just in Washington, D.C. or in people's homes," explains Schiller. "It also took place in Moscow, in Hong Kong, in Hawaii…. Coming from a journalistic background as I do, I went to all these locations to research it and then I made the decision to film in all these locations at a great cost. Normally productions like this don't travel all around the world, but we did do that." Rich locations include the Kremlin and the military academy in Moscow; the floating restaurant where Hanssen had dined in Hong Kong; the Sheraton Waikiki in Hawaii where Hanssen had vacationed with his wife; and in front of the White House, the Capitol and the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.

To Schiller's delight, the FBI permitted his production to spend a Saturday shooting on their premises. "For the first time in 10 years the FBI has allowed an entertainment company to shoot inside the FBI. They allowed the filming of a story of a man who violated the trust of the Bureau. The Bureau acknowledges it made tremendous mistakes; I think it's a credit to the Bureau that they have matured to that point. They even took William Hurt, Ron Silver and Wayne Knight into the strategic secret command center of the FBI -- the bunker -- to give them a feeling of authenticity (though the production didn't film there)."

"The production designer, Michael Baugh, and I were permitted to tour many of the floors of the FBI so we could recreate the offices in our Toronto studios. We were allowed to photograph and take measurements. We saw historical photographs. We saw all of these areas that are highly secret. We even photographed the FBI bathrooms so we could re-create a bathroom scene. We had complete cooperation. They also allowed us to use retired FBI agents that worked with Hanssen as technical advisors."

One of the retired FBI agents who worked as a technical advisor for this production was Rusty Capps, who is currently President of the Center for Counterintelligence and Security Studies in Alexandria, VA. "Because four of the seniors of our company all knew and worked with Bob Hanssen in Counterintelligence, it came to the attention of Larry Schiller and Norman Mailer that perhaps we might be worthy of talking to in order to get a sense of some of the issues, some of the background in the case… Then when they started shooting the movie, they asked us to be on-scene technical advisors. So, we were up in Toronto assisting in that process," explained Capps, who worked for 16 years in Counterintelligence - and was in FBI headquarters with Hanssen from 1990 to 1995.

In Toronto, most of Capps' responsibility was to ensure that the scenes set in the FBI offices were accurately portrayed. For instance, Capps made certain the actors wore appropriate badging at appropriate times. Also, he advised that at the office the agents generally keep their guns in their desks. He also helped them dress the office sets with items that would have been found in Counterintelligence offices. "We went out to a Canadian war surplus store and bought some Russian hats, some Russian insignia and some Russian shirts and hung them around the office spaces. That's what they would have had -- that would have been their target. I have at home a very furry Russian hat with a Russian insignia on the top of it," laughed Capps

"My wife (who was in FBI Counterintelligence nearly 17 years) and I found the FBI headquarters' sets in Toronto to be absolutely eerie. The attention to detail was incredible. We made one correction because they called a division the National Security Division. But when Hanssen was there it was the Intelligence Division, so they had to change that… But the amount of effort that Larry went through to ensure that the detail was consistent with FBI headquarters was remarkable. Larry even went to the extent of building a model of what the building looked like across the courtyard so when you see out the windows it looks real. I guarantee there are going to be FBI agents who watch this and are going to be convinced that the FBI actually let Larry film all of the FBI headquarters scenes on the fourth floor because there is such a remarkable attention to detail."