Georgi Banks-Davies<\/a>, best known for directing \u201cI Hate Suzie\u201d for Sky Atlantic and Netflix\u2019s \u201cKaos.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tSpeaking to Variety, Banks-Davies discusses picking up a series 10 years on, taking over from the \u201cincredible\u201d Bier, and how season two of \u201cThe Night Manager\u201d marks the first time that le Carr\u00e9\u2019s spy world has been expanded beyond his novels \u2014\u00a0a move he fully gave his blessing. <\/p>\n
\t\tHow did you get involved in this \u2014\u00a0it seems very different from your previous work?\t<\/p>\n
\n\tIt was actually two years ago today. I got an out of the blue phone call from my agent saying, \u2018Guess what, they want to see you for The Night Manager.\u2019 And honestly, my first reaction was, \u2018Oh my God, incredible.\u2019 I\u2019m a huge le Carr\u00e9 fan, a huge espionage fan and a huge fan of thrillers. I\u2019ve always wanted to make action but my career had not necessarily pointed in that direction. So to be kind of given that opportunity, it felt out of the blue. Then I went on to meet the producers at The Ink Factory \u2014 le Carr\u00e9\u2019s kids \u2014 and the writer David Farr. We talked about the big thematics of the show, what\u2019s it\u2019s politically saying on a bigger platform. But what struck me were the characters he\u2019d formed. For me, the characters have to come first. And then I met Tom (Hiddleston) and were excavating the character \u00ac\u2014 what does Jonathan Pine look like 10 years later? Finally they said, \u201cDo you want to direct it and direct all of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tI think this is the closest thing to cinema you can do as a TV director. Right from the start, I was basically told: This is a six-hour movie. So it\u2019s shot all at the same time, it\u2019s edited all at the same time \u2014 it\u2019s made like a six-hour movie. There\u2019s a lot of pressure, but also so much freedom creatively. And I still cannot believe I got to make it.<\/p>\n
\t\tSeason 1 of \u201cThe Night Manager\u201d was adapted from le Carr\u00e9\u2019s novel, but is this the first time they\u2019ve expanded on one of his books?\t<\/p>\n
\n\tYeah, it is. And there\u2019s a lot of question marks around that. But they\u2019ve been very conscious about how they\u2019ve done it. And le Carr\u00e9 was aware of it before he passed away.<\/p>\n
\t\tSo he gave it his blessing?\t<\/p>\n
\n\tYeah, he\u2019d given it his blessing \u2014 he wanted them to do it. And we had the same writer [as Season 1] in David Farr, who\u2019s an aficionado of le Carr\u00e9 and understands how to inhabit that world. For me, it\u2019s like you have to trust that there is a DNA in the project, which is literally le Carr\u00e9\u2019s family. There will be nothing that would harm that or harm what their father would have intended. I never got to meet him, but I had to kind of make that assumption that it all comes with good blessing. But I\u2019m pretty sure I read somewhere that le Carr\u00e9 said that a film adaptation is an adaptation of the film, not the book. And by that, he meant when he was working on stuff he really gave creative freedom to the writers and the directors. So if you look at the first book and you look at the TV show, it changed the time period, setting and some of the characters. He was always very empowering of that in the adaptation.<\/p>\n
\t\tIt seems rare to get a sequel to a series that came out 10 years ago. I don\u2019t want to remotely suggest that 2016 was a more innocent and carefree time, but a lot has happened since then. Do you think this story reflects how the world has changed in the last decade?\t<\/p>\n
\n\tYeah, 100%. We live in a post-truth world now. We\u2019ve been through a huge, seismic political shift. And I think the show was always to me about an identity crisis. The characters are so often grappling with who they are. And I think in this moment that we live in, who we are and all the things that make us who we are, whether that is our race, religion, gender, where we were born, where we want to live \u2014 everything about us feels so much more prevalent and so much more judged. In one moment, it can make us safe, and in the other it can make us entirely unsafe. I feel every day it\u2019s on a knife edge. The things that you take for granted \u2014 like as a woman, as a queer person \u2014 they can be taken away from me. The fundamental human rights that I would assume are human rights are currently so in the balance, are currently so for the taking. And the show goes on to kind of really examine the idea of who we are based on where we come from and the ideals that we hold.<\/p>\n
\t\tWhen the first season came out it was a huge deal. It came before the rush of very expensive high-end drama here in the U.K., before the streamers set up huge bases here. I remember at the time people noting how glitzy it looked in comparison to most U.K. productions. Given that so much has changed in the U.K. and it\u2019s now an epicenter for global TV did it feel a little a little daunting to take that on?\t<\/p>\n
\n\tI\u2019d be lying if I say it wasn\u2019t daunting, but equally, that feeling had to be pushed straight away. You can\u2019t ignore what\u2019s come before and you can\u2019t ignore the fan base, and you can\u2019t ignore success like that. But if you try to replicate it, or if you let it infiltrate you, you will fail. For me as a filmmaker, I then have to ask, \u2018Why am I doing this?\u2019 I\u2019m doing this purely because I\u2019m responding to the material. You\u2019ve just got to trust the material and believe in it, and also believe that instinct that made you want to tell this story and want to do it in a unique way. The other thing I was quite surprised with was the amount of autonomy I was given to do that. I was told: You don\u2019t need to repeat anything that\u2019s come before, there is no house style, there is no way in which it has to be shot. There is no way in which it has to sound. There is no way in which the story has to be told. It\u2019s like: we like your instincts.<\/p>\n
\t\tYou\u2019re following in some illustrious footsteps, with Suzanne Bier having directed the first season \u2014 and winning an Emmy for it. Did you speak to her at all?\t<\/p>\n
\n\tI\u2019m a massive admirer of her, of her work, she\u2019s brilliant. And in this industry, as a woman, you can\u2019t ignore how incredible Suzanne is and how much she\u2019s paved the way for so many women directors. But then you\u2019ve got to go: Ok, thanks. So we did speak, but not before we shot \u2014 we talked afterwards. And I actually loved that, because it\u2019s like we\u2019d been two soldiers who\u2019d gone to different battles, and then we exchanged the war stories.<\/p>\n
\t\tIf I remember correctly, Olivia Colman was pregnant with her third child when she shot the first season. So they must be double digits now.\t<\/p>\n
\n\tI know! Isn\u2019t it excellent? What an amazing mascot of the show.<\/p>\n
\t\tFollowing the first season, as is always the case whenever a British actor of a certain age picks up a gun, there was a lot of noise about Tom Hiddleston being the next James Bond. At the time, they obviously weren\u2019t looking for a new 007. But 10 years on \u2014 they very much are. Do you think this might reignite calls for Tom to become Bond?\t<\/p>\n
\n\tI have no idea! That is a question for Tom. But what I would actually say is that people might start thinking, if they were to do a \u201cNight Manager\u201d prequel, who gets to play Jonathan Pine. I\u2019d like that to be the conversation \u2014 who\u2019s going to lead the early years Pine.<\/p>\n
\t\tHas there been any talk of continuing into a third season?\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThere was a third season that was always in the offing. David is writing it now \u2014 he\u2019s at the coalface and in the early stage. But yeah, when the the second season came the plan was to go to three. So when you see our whole series, you\u2019ll see it can sit entirely alone but can also sit very much as the second book in the trilogy.<\/p>\n
\t\tWhat next for you? Where do you go after directing Tom Hiddleston in a 6-hour espionage film?\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThere are a few things, but right now my focus is actually on film projects. One is an adaptation of a book about a young woman and one is a sports movie, a period race car move, which is my great passion, and about a woman in the driving seat. So they\u2019re the focus at the moment and hopefully one will be moving forward soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ten years ago, an espionage thriller series became the talk of the town for a good few weeks,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,125201,85,46,43468,65063,411],"class_list":{"0":"post-229972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-georgi-banks-davies","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-the-night-manager","13":"tag-tom-hiddleston","14":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}