{"id":413387,"date":"2026-01-17T17:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T17:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/413387\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T17:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T17:59:08","slug":"the-night-manager-producer-on-hugh-lauries-return-as-richard-roper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/413387\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Night Manager’ Producer On Hugh Laurie’s Return As Richard Roper"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWarning: spoilers ahead for the first three episodes of The Night Manager<\/a> Season 2.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere is a sense of relief as Stephen Garrett<\/a> logs into our video call. It\u2019s the second time we\u2019ve spoken in recent weeks, and it feels as though a weight has been lifted from the shoulders of The Night Manager\u2019s executive producer.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen we met before Christmas, Garrett was full of nods and winks about Season 2, but ultimately filed any spoilers under: Top Secret. But now, with The Night Manager three episodes deep on both sides of the Atlantic, the British producer is rather more loquacious. He is finally free to talk about the return of Richard Roper, the spy drama\u2019s magnetic antagonist, played by Hugh Laurie<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe clues were there, not least Laurie\u2019s executive producer credit and a brush with the paparazzi during filming in London, but it was not until the final seconds of episode three that it was confirmed: Dickie\u2019s not dead! We hear Laurie\u2019s unmistakable baritone voice, but then there is Roper, through the brush of the Colombian jungle, slapping the back of a comrade and calling him, \u201cOld boy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGarrett says guarding the secret has been a privilege \u2014 \u201cyou just want to give viewers the best possible experience in an increasingly miserable world\u201d \u2014 and great care has been given to misdirecting rather than lying. Even Olivia Colman got in on the act, asking that her character Angela Burr refer to Roper as a \u201cbody\u201d rather than a \u201ccorpse\u201d in the first moments of Season 2.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tStephen Garrett on set with Hugh Laurie (credit: Des Willie)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe downside is that the BBC<\/a> and Amazon Prime Video<\/a> have not been able to play perhaps The Night Manager\u2019s strongest card in marketing the series. \u201cIt\u2019s like going into a boxing ring with one arm behind your back,\u201d Garrett winces. That\u2019s about to change, with the BBC now running teasers unashamedly featuring Roper, in what Garrett describes as a deliberate switch in marketing strategy. He is all too aware that, since Season 1 premiered a decade ago, the competition has gone up a gear.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo what can we expect from Laurie in the second half of Season 2? Roper returns as his villainous heir, Teddy (played by the very watchable Diego Calva), is juggling a secret arms shipment for his undercover army. Tom Hiddleston<\/a>\u2019s Jonathan Pine is on their tail, using his brash alter-ego Matthew Ellis.<\/p>\n

\n\tGarrett is still keeping surprises up his sleeve, but reveals that Laurie brings an \u201ceven more deliciously evil spin\u201d to Roper in the heat of Colombia. Garrett says the House star relished being back in Roper\u2019s skin and improvised some \u201cspine-tingling\u201d threats against Pine. Laurie concurs: \u201cI\u2019m not going to apologize for loving the worst man in the world. I\u2019m repulsed, but sneakily, I love him too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGarrett detects similarities between Roper and a \u201ccertain leader of a democratic country.\u201d He won\u2019t name Donald Trump because he is being polite to the BBC and Amazon, but the U.S. president\u2019s presence lingers in his remarks. \u201cThere\u2019s a really interesting articulation by Roper of his business model,\u201d Garrett explains. \u201cHe talks about the philosophy underpinning regime change, why you do it, and how it works. It\u2019s really prescient.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe ghost of Roper did haunt the first half of Season 2, but it also gave writer David Farr the space to allow new characters to breathe. This is to the benefit of Calva\u2019s Teddy and Camila Morrone\u2019s Roxana, who steam up the screen at every opportunity. If Roper is the archetypal testosterone-charged bad guy, Teddy is a more enigmatic presence, with his unbuttoned shirts and sexual tension with Pine. This is played out explicitly in a sultry dance scene between Teddy, Pine, and Roxana, which feels a long way from Roper\u2019s icy menace.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tTom Hiddleston, Camila Morrone & Diego Calva <\/p>\n

\n\tGarrett says this was deliberate: \u201cWhat David has brilliantly captured is the greater complexity and sophistication of the relationships between men and women. It\u2019s not defined in the way that it used to be. And there\u2019s something very contemporary about the attraction you can see between Teddy and Pine.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s axiomatic, really, that spies have no friends, have no family. If they talk to anyone, they\u2019re lying. So to communicate character, to get inside their heads, is tricky. The dance itself is a kind of metaphor of what\u2019s going on with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDiverging from John le Carr\u00e9\u2019s masterwork has been \u201cscary\u201d at times, Garrett admits. The author was heavily involved in Season 1, right down to barging his way into a scene with Tom Hollander\u2019s Lance \u201cCorky\u201d Corkoran. Le Carr\u00e9 initially insisted that there be no further seasons, but changed his mind before he died in 2020. Honoring his world \u2014 as well as finding a way out of Season 1\u2019s \u201cnarrative corner\u201d \u2014 explains why it has taken a decade for The Night Manager to return.<\/p>\n

\n\tWill we have to wait another 10 years for Season 3? Garrett, who runs Character 7, hopes not. He says development is underway and \u201cbroad brushstrokes\u201d have been applied to canvas, but it remains too early to talk about storylines and shoots. After a garrulous conversation, Garrett is suddenly back to picking his words very carefully. Such is the world of spycraft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warning: spoilers ahead for the first three episodes of The Night Manager Season 2. There is a sense…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[4856,8827,236,88,134610,198203,146868,69784],"class_list":{"0":"post-413387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-amazon-prime-video","9":"tag-bbc","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-hugh-laurie","13":"tag-stephen-garrett","14":"tag-the-night-manager","15":"tag-tom-hiddleston"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}