he Night Manager Bests Bond to Give the Espionage Genre a Much-Needed Update

Tom Hiddleston and the cast reveal what makes their spy thriller different than your average Bond.

Ever since The Night Manager—a six-part TV series based on the John le Carré novel of the same name—debuted to sky-high ratings in the U.K. there’s been one comparison on everyone’s mind. Could Jonathan Pine, the suave, suit-wearing, martini-ordering spy, be Tom Hiddleston’s audition to play James Bond?

“It’s a very flattering comparison and I completely understand it,” Hiddleston admits in a phone call. “The Night Manager is a spy thriller and Jonathan Pine, through the course of it, becomes a British spy, and the most iconic British spy in popular culture has a name, and his name is James Bond.”

But the truth is The Night Manager, which debuts stateside Tuesday night on AMC, does Bond one better and delivers, over the course of several hours, an updated espionage thriller that comes in from the Cold War in a way 007 still hasn’t managed to.

Hiddleston is joined on his multi-continent spy frolic by Hugh Laurie as the charming-yet-chilling billionaire Richard Roper, Olivia Colman as Pine’s determined handler, Angela Burr, and Elizabeth Debicki as Roper’s bruised and glamorous wife, Jed. Pine goes undercover in Roper’s organization in the hopes of exposing the world-famous philanthropist for the corrupt, warmongering profiteer he is. As Pine sinks deeper, his ties to Burr, Whitehall, and Washington, D.C., begin to muddy with his growing fascination with Roper’s wife.

All six episodes, directed by Susanne Bier (Brothers, After the Wedding),reportedly boast the biggest budget for a drama in BBC history—a mighty £3 million (that’s approximately $4 million) per episode—and follow Pine from the dusty streets of Cairo, to the snowy peaks of Switzerland, to the sun-drenched shores of Mallorca, Spain. In that way Bond and The Night Manager are very similar: every location, glamorous costume, and well-coiffed member of the privileged class looks impeccable.

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