Watch The Night Manager series two from Thursday, January 1, on BBC iPlayer and BBC One in the UK and on Prime Video from January 11, where available.
Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston) thought he’d buried his past. Now living as Alex Goodwin – a low-level MI6 officer running a quiet surveillance unit in London – his life is comfortingly uneventful. Then one night, a chance sighting of an old Roper mercenary sparks a call to action, leading Pine into a violent encounter with a new player: Colombian businessman Teddy Dos Santos (Diego Calva).
On this perilous new journey, Pine meets Roxana Bolaños (Camila Morrone), a businesswoman who reluctantly helps him infiltrate Teddy’s Colombian arms operation. Once in Colombia, Pine is plunged deep into a deadly plot involving arms and the training of a guerrilla army.
To stop it, Pine must don a new identity as a reckless Hong Kong playboy bold enough to win the trust of Teddy Dos Santos and his team. But as Pine gets closer to Teddy, he uncovers another figure pulling the strings – Gilberto Hanson, a terrifying local arms dealer whose reach extends to the heart of London’s intelligence community.
Pine’s infiltration becomes a dangerous game of deception, seduction, and survival. Roxana may be Pine’s only ally – or his greatest risk. Teddy’s loyalties to both Pine and Hanson waver between devotion and suspicion. And Hanson, ever calculating, plays the most brutal game of all.
As allegiances splinter, and the scale of the MI6 corruption comes to light, Pine races to expose a conspiracy designed to destabilise a nation. And with betrayal at every turn, he must decide whose trust he needs to earn and how far he’s willing to go before it’s too late.
Ink Factory/BBC
Q: What’s it like stepping back into your character’s shoes after so many years?
Tom – I think I felt I had unfinished business with this role. I found making the first series incredibly fulfilling. I found it really stimulating. It was about the world as we find it, but it was also about fascinating, mysterious characters with very deep, complex inner lives. John le Carré is the great specialist at combining those two things – political reality and personal complexity – within a great spy story, a sense of thrill and mystery.
Over the course of the first series, Pine changes: he begins as a night manager at a luxury hotel and ends as a field agent for the Security and Intelligence Services. He’s been activated. Some fire has been lit in his heart and in his soul, which will not be extinguished until the end of his lifetime. What does he do with that fire? Where does he go now?
Noah – Daniel’s gone through dramatic changes. He left his home in Spain and returned to London, and never saw his dad again. He has this constant question looming over him and a shadow of grief that has taken its toll. He’s negative and cynical, and he’s having a tough time growing up and figuring out who he is because of his father’s absence.
Olivia – It’s been lovely going back to Angela Burr after nine years. I know it’s nine years because I was very pregnant the last time round, and that baby bump is now nine years old. It’s been lovely to come back and see the old team.
Q: For those coming into this second series completely fresh, what is The Night Manager all about?
Tom – The Night Manager is an espionage thriller; it’s about secrets and betrayal, about trust and loss. It’s about a former soldier turned hotelier turned spy, Jonathan Pine, who is enlisted as a field agent for MI6 to infiltrate the operation of a British arms dealer, who is charming, sophisticated and appealing. But his enormous wealth is gained through illegal arms dealing with criminals, and Pine must take this man down. They are two sides of the same coin: Jonathan Pine and Richard Roper are such similar men; they’re English and brought up in a similar world, but they exist on opposite sides of a very thin line of moral clarity.
Q: What can we expect for the second series?
Noah – It’s expanding on the first season and taking a lot of the same themes, but then stepping it up to a whole new level. What is nice is that the team are not trying to recreate the first season; they’re not trying to just replicate what’s already been done. It’s individual and stands alone. They’re not scared to introduce new characters, new villains, and new exciting locations. Sometimes you get sequels that just try to do the same thing again, but this is completely original.
Tom – Years have passed, and the world has changed. Roper is dead, and Pine has been living another life, under another name: ‘Alex Goodwin’. In that half-waking sleep of Alex Goodwin, a scent of familiar dragon smoke glides into Pine’s sphere and the old dragon-slayer in Pine is reactivated. There is a strain of something he recognises, and that impels him to Colombia, into another dance with danger.
Ink Factory / Des Willie
Q. Olivia, can you describe the dynamic between Angela Burr and Jonathan Pine?
Olivia – There’s such a great deal of respect between the two, and it’s a tender relationship in many ways. They look after each other. They’re friends who have each other’s backs. Angela is protective of him because she’s the one who got him into this, so she feels responsible for the situation. Overall, their relationship is lovely.
Q: Let’s discuss the new members of the ensemble cast. What do Diego Calva and Camila Morrone bring to this world?
Tom – Their work in this has blown me away. They’ve taken what’s on the page and given it an extra dimension in every conceivable aspect. Diego Calva plays Teddy Dos Santos, who, on the face of it, is Pine’s antagonist, trading illegal weapons under the counter to create political and civic instability in Colombia. Opposite to Pine and me, Diego is majestic, thoughtful and sensitive. Roxana Bolaños is played by Camila Morrone, who comes into the series as a woman of mystery and intrigue.
Pine has a complex history of guilt and shame after two women he got close to were put at great peril because of their proximity to him, and he worries that Roxana is going to follow the same pattern. It turns out Roxana’s much more complicated than that. She’s got her own fire, pain, and her own mission. The dance that Pine and Roxana must do is one of trust and betrayal, which really is the theme between them. Camila has just thrown her whole soul at this character. Camila’s performance is so instinctive and magnetic; it’s very fiery and unpredictable.
Ink Factory / Des Willie
Q: Why should audiences watch The Night Manager series two?
Noah – Because it’s written by David Farr, and he’s a genius. I think it has everything, it’s dark, intense, mysterious, and sexy with elements of humour. It’s also full of some of the best actors of our generation. My question is, why wouldn’t you watch it?
Tom – David Farr has achieved the impossible. The Night Manager was based on a novel by John le Carré; there was no second novel, no sequel. David has written it with all the sophistication and complexity that le Carré would approve of and admire. Teddy, Roxana, Colombia, Alex Goodwin and Matthew Ellis have all emerged from David’s imagination. This is where he chose to go, and we all followed him there. He’s forensic about detail, and brilliant at the plotting of a complex spy thriller. It feels like a roller-coaster. David’s scripts are exciting, dangerous, edgy, mythic and complex. It’s about shame, guilt, and redemption.
Olivia – It’s exciting. There’s a threat around every corner, with people you’re rooting for and people you hate, all whilst looking amazing. You can properly invest your time in it because it’s an intelligent drama. This is a series that you can get excited about, watching it with family and friends, wondering where the story will go.
Watch The Night Manager series two from Thursday, January 1, on BBC iPlayer and BBC One in the UK and on Prime Video from January 11, where available.
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