The Night Agent‘s Gabriel Basso on Racking Up Wounds, His Co-Star’s Accent and One Tweak to Final Scene
It’s not easy being the guy who mans the Night Agent phone.
Speaking with TVLine not long after Netflix’s D.C.-set thriller from Shawn Ryan was near-instantly renewed for Season 2, leading man Gabriel Basso talked about ensuring that FBI Agent Peter Sutherland looked every bit as scraped, cut and banged-up as he should, having dodged all manner of assassins and threats over 10 action-packed episodes.
In the Q&A below, Basso also shares his wish that Tongan co-star Luciane Buchanan had gotten to unleash her accent, and discloses the one tweak he requested for Season 1’s closing scene.
TVLINE | Who called you with the renewal news, and who was your first call afterwards?
I had heard hints of it, but [showrunner] Shawn [Ryan] called me and verified it. And then… I didn’t call anybody afterwards. My team called me, my agents and managers called me, and were like, “Congrats!” But I didn’t really call anybody.
TVLINE | When you first got the script for this series and sat down with it, did you find it to be a page-turner?
Yeah, I definitely wanted to know what was going to happen next, but the scripts changed so much throughout the shooting that, like, I just stopped reading ahead. Because you’d be tied to something or you’d be excited to shoot something, and then that would get taken out or exchanged. Instead, I just focused on the sides that I was given for the next day — even though it still changed sometimes.
TVLINE | Was there a fine line in portraying Peter, in that you wanted him to be capable, obviously, but on the other hand he is far from a superhero? Did you envision him as, like, a rung below John McClane?
I tried to make him fall back on his training, because high-stress situations bring out you your training, and that makes him capable. So, while everybody gets cut in a knife fight, and when in a brawl you’ll take a hit, in situations that are extreme, where he might be out of his depth, he’d fall back on his training.
TVLINE | One thing that people picked up on, and like about the show, is Peter accumulates wounds and cuts throughout the 10 episodes! And they don’t magically go away. He gets banged up.
I was very adamant about that when I was talking to the makeup team and Shawn and everyone. The show takes place over three days and there’s no way that a wound he suffers, a cut on an elbow or whatever, is going to close up and be healed. For example, towards the end of the season his stitches open back up after the fight with Briggs, and there’s a gouge from a cut that was inflicted in [Episode] 6. There was always was a callback to wounds.
TVLINE | Talk about the work that you and Luciane Buchanan did towards creating your characters’ dynamic, because obviously it was very important to the series. Were you very conscious of how the characters bounced off each other?
Yeah, we did our best to throw in some rapport, some banter. I, personally, would’ve liked to see Luciane with her [native] New Zealand accent, just because sometimes we would be in the moment, improv-ing with each other, and she didn’t feel comfortable saying things in an American accent. I was like, “Man, they should’ve just let her riff and have her accent!”
TVLINE | Did I read the situation right, that Peter fell for Rose first?
No, I don’t think either of them really fell for each other. I think they were perfectly fine with being friends up until they were both at rock bottom. And then they looked at each other and were like, “Oh, s–t, you’re still here?” I don’t think there was anything romantic, originally. [Peter] was like, “I’m keeping you alive,” and she was dubious of me, so I looked at her as a job and she looked at me as a potential rat.
TVLINE | What are your expectations for Season 2? Shawn was pretty tight-lipped with me, but has he confided anything in you?
No, we’re in the same boat, man. I know at some point the writers and Shawn are going to reach out to me to sort of hear my thoughts, and we’re all going to collaborate. But I think they’re trying to just map out the general sense of the show right now.
TVLINE | I do wonder, after that closing sequence in the finale, if maybe there’s unfinished business with Peter’s father. Like, Peter knows the truth, but does he know all of the truth? Might he want to hunt down the people who were behind that whole mess?
I think he’d have to defer to the President, which is a tricky situation, because that’s his job now. So, even if he wants to go do something, he does not have the personal sovereignty. He signed up to do something, and I don’t know if he’s fully aware of how involved it is now.
TVLINE | Lastly, were there any alt takes or alternate endings that you filmed that ended up a bit different in the final product?
No. They did have an idea to do a scene at the end where, as it originally was written, I smiled once I scan my face and then read the report. And I was like, “No, screw that,” because he knows about the government and realizes how deep he’s in. He’s now in their space and cleared to open this thing, and he’s not smiling. That was the only thing that happened where I was like, “No, I’m not doing that.”
Want scoop on The Night Agent Season 2, or for any other show? Email InsideLine@tvline.com and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line.
Is Luciane going to be back too as his love interest or was that just a passing fancy?
I loved this series and can’t wait for next season!!
This show was so much than I expected. I binged the entire season over a few days.
I work nights and made the mistake of watching the pilot after finishing my 2nd out of 4 shifts and ended up binging all 10 episodes in one go, I was exhausted when I went back to work that night but it was worth it.
Same here. best show I’ve seen in a long time. It was action packed and they worked so well as a couple without anyone deciding they needed to “get it on” in the middle of every scene. Loved their growth as characters too. She’ll be ready to answer that phone herself soon too. lol
I hope Rose is back in season 2. I’d hate for him to have a new love interest.
Rose better be back for season 2. She was so much more than a love interest. She was fully fledged character that was actually very useful. Rather than just being a pretty damsel in distress.
I totally agree with you.
A slow starter, but it got more engrossing with each succeeding episode.
I enjoyed the 1st season a lot. If you liked this you should watch Bodyguard with Richard Madden… So freaking good!
Not only was Gabriel Basso and cast in the Night Agent deservedly proclaimed as slicker than slick, engrossing and thrilling making The Night Agent a must see but it is also a must read for espionage aficionados. It’s indisputably one of the best FBI thrillers ever and Shawn Ryan’s The Night Agent is comfortably a five star production. It’s based on Matthew Quirk’s spy novel of the same name which also has splendid reviews. The book is a suspenseful, cloak and dagger page-turner about an FBI agent on a hazardous mission to uncover a mole in the White House. It’s a chilling nail-biter to the finish, whether watching the ten episodes comprising Series 1 on screen or reading the book.
If you liked Bill Fairclough’s epic fast fact based spy thriller Beyond Enkription in The Burlington Files series about Pemberton’s People in MI6 you should like this no matter what the format. In real life, Fairclough was one of Pemberton’s People in MI6 and worked with the CIA, real SAS Rogue Heroes and other ungentlemanly officers as explained in a news article dated 31 October 2022 available from TheBurlingtonFiles website. Once you are irretrievably immersed in both worlds, The Night Agent and The Burlington Files, will enchant and entrap you!