‘Night Agent’ Star Gabriel Basso on Peter’s Big Secret After Season 2: “He’s Not Indestructible”
[This story contains major spoilers from the season two finale of The Night Agent.]
Newly minted night agent Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso) is back and secretly investigating the highest office in the land — but with an added twist this time around.
In the season two finale of Netflix’s smash-hit spy action thriller The Night Agent — majorspoilers ahead! — Peter is able to help prevent another deadly matter of national security, but his means ultimately land him in hot water with his bosses. After thwarting an assassination plot against President Travers (Kari Matchett) at Camp David in season one, Peter’s investigation into a CIA intelligence leak in Bangkok — which leads to the tragic death of his partner, Alice (Brittany Snow) — led him back stateside to New York City, where he learns that some Iranian foreign nationals working for the United Nations came into contact with the classified information.
At the center of this season’s conspiracy is Foxglove, a joint CIA-military program aimed at combating the future of chemical warfare. The U.S. government initially wanted to preemptively develop antidotes to any potential weapons that their adversaries could use, but doing so meant they would have to manufacture those novel chemical agents themselves to know how to counter their effects. Although the program was quickly shuttered, the government had already sold one of those chemical compounds, KX, to Viktor Bala (Dikran Tulaine), an authoritarian leader who was later convicted of using the deadly gas on his own people by The Hague. Despite his guilt, Viktor accused the U.N. of covering up American involvement.
Knowing that his own son, Tomás Bala (Rob Heaps), would likely fail to execute his heinous plan for revenge, Viktor enlisted a team led by his nephew, Markus Dargan (Michael Malarkey), to steal a mobile lab and kidnap one of the original scientists to manufacture canisters of KX. When Markus’ teams ends up kidnapping Rose (Luciane Buchanan) along with a renowned chemist and his family, a desperate Peter turns to Jacob Monroe (Louis Herthum), a powerful businessman who offers to give him valuable information about Rose’s whereabouts in exchange for Peter breaking into the UN building and stealing a key tape. Peter begrudgingly goes through with the deal, despite the fact that Monroe would essentially “own” him indefinitely.
“Peter was forced to be a hero in season one. In season two, he saves a lot of people, but there’s no such thing as a right thing done in a wrong way,” Basso tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Peter is starting to fall into the power trap of, ‘Trust me, I’m helping you. Trust me, this is the right thing.’ He’s losing that consistency and objectivity that’s insulated from the scenario he’s in.”
Nevertheless, upon stopping the chemical weapons attack, which would have wiped out everyone in Manhattan, Peter decides to turn himself in. He confesses to releasing Solomon Vega (Berto Colon), a former Marine turned fixer who was working with Monroe, from custody; breaking and entering into the UN headquarters; stealing sensitive information from the office of the secretary general; and transferring that information to Monroe.
He’s expected to be confined to a life of solitude, but then Peter’s boss Catherine (Amanda Warren) enlists him on a top-secret new mission: to ascertain the exact nature of the relationship between Monroe and Governor Richard Hagan (Ward Horton), the presidential candidate who used Peter’s stolen file to confirm that his main opposition, former CIA director Patrick Knox, was the one who greenlit the development of Foxglove and the sale of KX to Viktor. Peter, as it turns out, just aided and abetted in the swinging of the presidential election in Hagan’s favor.
“There’s a strong possibility that this broker is working with or about to control a sitting president, and that every piece of classified intelligence that crosses the Resolute Desk is up for sale to the highest bidder,” Catherine tells Peter before sending him on his way. “[Monroe] still believes he owns you. So… we’re gonna let him.”
On a recent break from shooting the already renewed third season, which began production late last year in Istanbul and will wrap up later this year in New York, Basso sat down with THR to discuss his major takeaways from Peter’s first year as a Night Agent, the state of Peter’s relationships with Rose and Monroe and how his experiences as a child actor — as well as his self-imposed, seven-year hiatus — have shaped his outlook on the business as an adult.
***
What conversations did you have with creator Shawn Ryan about evolving Peter between seasons as he transitioned into his role as a Night Agent?
We talked about pushing Peter to his limit and the reality of what this job entails. He’s a person with a lot of conviction. Anybody with that amount of will, their test [of morality] comes with, “Who is the arbiter of what is good and bad?” And if you are, then you find yourself in that sort of subjective good — “I’m doing this, because I think it’s good” — as opposed to having someone tell you it’s the objective good. And there’s not a lot of objective good in a spy business. So, just seeing the weight of his decisions weigh on him and having him start to be pulled in a bunch of different directions was something that I was adamant about, and that Shawn and I both agreed on.
So much of the second season boils down to Peter coming to terms with his new life as a Night Agent — and the increasingly difficult moral compromises that he must make on the job. How did you want to physicalize Peter’s inner turmoil as he is pushed further into morally grey territory, but tries to maintain his core values?
It’s difficult because physically, he’s very capable. But what motivates the body is that decision, the higher calling of what you’re doing. I thought about Peter showing desperation, but also hesitancy in the action, in being thrown into a fight, fighting for his life, but then also recognizing, “I’m choosing to do this and put myself in these positions.” I think now is the first time I’m thinking about it. (Laughs) That’s a Shawn Ryan [decision in the writing], and then my job is to act out that turmoil and choreograph the desperation and brutality. But he could also be way more brutal. I mean, they were having to pump the brakes on me a bit on the fight side when I was like, “Why don’t I just kill this guy? He’s tried to kill me three times, and I’m knocking him out? [I should] put a couple rounds in him.” And they were like, “No, no, no. Peter’s a hero.” So I think my bad tendency started to show there, especially with bad people. (Laughs)
You previously said that you’ve insisted on doing almost all the fights on this show yourself, in an attempt to keep the audience immersed in the action and tension of the story. What do you think can be revealed about Peter as a character through the way he moves and fights?
Seeing anyone go through anything challenging ingratiates that person to you. You’ve seen it in soccer or football; you’ve seen it in boxing. You could go into it as a fan of Mickey Ward. And then watching Ward and Gatti fight, at the end of it, you just respect both of them. There’s a certain amount of respect and I think affection that Peter earns by putting himself on the line constantly.
If we don’t show that, if I don’t actually put myself in a position where I could get injured and we are lying about that, it feels fake. It’s a show — it’s a lie, but it’s a story. But we were throwing each other around. We were getting banged up. Some injuries were picked up. The style of fights on this show are very grimy, visceral and nasty, and I think that kind of action makes the protagonist likable. He’s not indestructible. He’s pushing himself. He accrues injuries throughout the show. He’s more and more desperate as the show goes on.
I think, yes, spending hours in the makeup chair, having hair come in and touch you up after each take, is a disservice to what the audience expects. Especially fighting in real life — you look like garbage, man, after you get hit. It’s not like you get hit and you smolder your way through the punch. It hurts. And to lie to the audience like, Peter’s this badass that doesn’t get hurt? That’s doing the show a disservice. So I constantly push for that kind of reality where he gets injured and is not always at 100 percent.
Can you pinpoint a particular fight from this season that stands out in your mind as illustrative of his character or his development in the show?
I think the basement fight in the embassy [in episode four] is pretty rad. (Laughs) We were mauling each other. It wasn’t necessarily a super clean fight. That was one where we were slipping all over the place. There was a moment I fell back and hit my head and the stuntman and I stood up and were throwing each other into things. This isn’t one of those shows where you go into a fight and you know exactly what’s going to happen. We choreograph [the fights] to be sort of loose, and there’s a lot of room for actual physics and slipping and fighting and making things nasty that I think is character revealing in Peter that he’s not willing to give up. It’s a two-on-one [fight]. The other guy has a taser, but Peter is not willing to stop, you know?
In the second season, Rose becomes Peter’s conscience — and, in some ways, his kryptonite. After stopping the attack on the UN, Peter tells Rose, “As long as I’m a Night Agent, people are gonna try to use you to get to me.” He then cuts her loose. What did you want to convey in those emotionally charged final looks between Peter and Rose outside the hotel as Peter essentially says goodbye and leaves handcuffed in Catherine’s vehicle?
I think there is that sense of losing something, especially when that person is a significant part of your life. But also, within love, within relationships, there should be a responsibility to protect; there should be a responsibility to make sure that person is safe. I think it would be selfish of Peter to recognize there being a risk and asking her to make it for his sake anyway. And it’s a little more complicated than that. She obviously has a say, but I think from his end, it’s very much, “I’m not willing to get you killed so I can have a girlfriend. It’s not worth it.” I think he knows the reality of the job. She’s almost died a few times. [He remembers] what happened to Alice, what happened to Rose’s aunt and uncle. People in this world are not good people.
Having her be an access point in his life, especially when there are so many people, especially with how season two ends, using him and him fence-riding — I think, if anything, the breakup would have happened earlier, too. He’s like, “Hey, I’m about to go do this thing and fence ride between two entities that are willing to use you to control me. Get out of here.” If it didn’t happen at the hotel, it was going to happen anyway.
Where do you think Peter’s moral compass is sitting by the end of the second season?
It’s been shattered, dude. It’s been shattered and stepped on. (Laughs)
Has his concept of morality shifted from when we first met him, or do you think it has remained consistent in spite of the choices he’s been forced to make?
I think his moral compass is more like the one from Pirates of the Caribbean that points to what [direction] he wants. Peter is heroic in a lot of ways. I think he was forced to be a hero in season one. I think in season two, he saves a lot of people, but there’s no such thing as a right thing done in a wrong way. I think Peter is starting to fall into the power trap of, “Trust me, I’m helping you. Trust me, this is the right thing.” He’s losing that consistency and objectivity that’s insulated from the scenario he’s in. I feel like he’s the kind of person that would not backstab you, but would do his best to be loyal and then say, “Trust me, I’m helping you. I did it for you.” You know what I’m saying? He is heroic, and he’s doing his best to be a hero. But I think also, he’s doing things the wrong way and that’s a dangerous game to play. And that rhymed! (Laughs)
Catherine has now enlisted Peter on a top-secret new mission involving Hagan and Monroe heading into season three. You’re still early in the process of filming the third season, but what new layers are you finding in playing Peter already? How would you describe his struggle going forward?
I think he’s still trying to not find his footing because he knows what the job is now. But I don’t necessarily think he expects certain people to be involved with other people, or [that] certain people want to be involved with certain people. So he’s starting to put together how deep and how connected everything is in season three and how — once again, I’ll say he’s being used, but now he’s aware he’s being used, and he’s getting what he wants out of it now as well. He’s less swept up in the current of the environment like he was in season two, and now he’s learning how to swim, you know what I’m saying?
How did you want to play Peter’s one-on-one scenes with Monroe in the second season? There was an obvious air of fear and desperation with the lives of Rose and thousands of New Yorkers hanging in the balance, but I got the sense that Peter was trying to figure out how to read Monroe, which will come in handy next season.
Monroe is very compartmentalized about everything. I think for Peter, who operates sometimes on an emotional basis and makes personal decisions, it’s confusing to him at first, but he starts to slip into it and starts to look at things the way Monroe was looking at things when Peter realizes his father made the same decisions for him. I think he’s starting to realize that things aren’t black and white — especially in this business, when everyone is willing to get what they want out of it and use people. Monroe doesn’t hate Peter. He doesn’t hate Rose. He’s just using them. And I think that moral ambiguity and indifference to the lives of people is confusing to Peter at first.
I’m hesitant to say that he starts to get it by the end, but I think he does. I think it starts to click with him how this is a very transactional, utilitarian environment. And in the same way that he’s being used by Monroe, he recognizes the hypocrisy and the usury by Catherine and [Hong Chau’s] Farr and all these people that are using him on that end, too. I think it’s an enlightening glimpse into everything, where he might try to use the system against itself. I don’t know. That was pure speculation. I have no idea. Having read season three, I don’t know if he’s going to, but I probably would [do that]. (Laughs)
You stepped away from acting for seven years, and you seem to have returned with a refreshingly pragmatic view of this career path. What are you enjoying most about acting now that you weren’t necessarily enjoying when you were younger? Has that extra lived experience informed the way you handle fame?
Look, I’m thinking about stepping away again soon for a bit. (Laughs) I think it’s important, man, in this business to take a step back, because so much of what this business is is put on you by society. I think the value in it, the social status you get, the amount of attention you get for saying words you didn’t come up with, for standing where you’re told to stand, and how to say those words — it just feels like a very bizarre job. Our job is to entertain, and yet we’re being asked political questions. It feels very bizarre to be put in a position where I think the nature of what this job is is being undermined by itself.
If actors become more aware of themselves socially, they’re almost less able to do their job because they’re aware of themselves, and that defeats the whole purpose of acting, to play someone else and to not be [themselves]. It’s ego death. You’re not important — the story is — and yet this whole business has been built around ego now, so it feels very counter to what this business and what art should be. I wish that people would just go back to the way they saw it in the ancient world, which was that these people are telling a story that I can then take the lesson and apply it in my life, but the lesson is what’s important — not the people, not the conduits for the message, but the message itself, and then forget about us. We’re clowns. We’re jesters.
I think it’s better as an adult now because I have a little more sovereignty in what I’m agreeing to, what jobs I want to take, and how I can deal with crew and being friends with the crew, and seeing the other side of it. And then also being able to walk away [whenever I want]. I felt very obligated as a kid. You don’t really know what’s going on. You’re being told where to go by your parent or your agent or whatever. That trust relationship of “That’s an older person, that’s an adult, [so] I’m going to trust them” is used against you, almost. I wanted to go to soccer practice. I didn’t care about this business at all. I wanted to play soccer, so it felt really — I don’t know, there’s a certain amount of betrayal that comes into it. But also, it just is what it is, man. You grow up, and you learn, and you make good decisions. And now I’m back… for now.
***
The first two seasons of The Night Agent are now streaming on Netflix. Read THR’s interview with showrunner Ryan here.
