After ten years, The Night Manager is finally back with a second season that is even more explosive than the first as Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston) finds himself up against a far more dangerous and unpredictable new foe in Colombian arms dealer Teddy Dos Santos (Diego Calva).
As the season crosses its midway point, we were recently able to catch up with series regular Diego Calva, who plays this season's lead villain Teddy, and learn more about what's to come in the final few episodes and how he was able to shape that tension-fueled dyanmic with co-stars Tom Hiddleston and Camila Morrone.
He also explains why he relished playing the villain, the unique challenge this part presented versus his breakout role in Damien Chazelle's Babylon, and a whole lot more!
Season two features Tom Hiddleston, Diego Calva, Camila Morrone, Olivia Colman, Alistair Petrie, Douglas Hodge, Michael Nardone, Noah Jupe, Paul Chahidi, Hayley Squires, Indira varma, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Slavko Sobin, Unax Ugalde, Alberto Ammann, Diego Santos, Cristina Umaña Rojas, and Hugh Laurie.
The Night Manager season two is now streaming on Prime Video!
Watch our full chat below and/or keep scrolling to read the full transcription. Plus, remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more exclusive content!
ROHAN: Unlike the season one villain Roper, your character Teddy commits a lot of violence himself - so, what does that say about how he sort of views power and the position he finds himself in?
DIEGO: Well, I think, it is the villain, right? He is the bad guy. But I always think about Dog Day Afternoon, Pacino's movie, how interesting it is to watch Pacino doing his thing, watching his character face problems, seeing a smart character solving problems, right? And, he's just robbed a bank. He just did something horrible. But, you really, really care about him. You kind of feel attracted to him. So, I think Teddy, or what I tried to do with Teddy is something similar, like try to humanize and give some charm to the villain so the audience can actually relate and care about him.
ROHAN: After we learn more about your character in episode two, would you say you played Teddy as someone that is haunted by Roper's memory? Or someone that is more liberated by his death?
DIEGO: I try not to think about it a lot. For example, even before starting the shooting, the director, Georgi, asked me to not watch the first season again because I watched it during the pandemic, to try to create some kind of space, you know, and to create something different. So, I don't think Roper is on Teddy's mind, at least in the beginning.
ROHAN: You have some really tense scenes with Tom Hiddleston early on, where you're playing these psychological mind games with him - how did you want to approach the dynamic between Teddy and Pine?
DIEGO: Well, I always try to create sexual tension between them, once again, because I didn't want to go to the cliche. I'm a Mexican actor playing a Colombian Narco. So, there was a very easy way to play that, you know, and we all have seen that. So, I tried to put more layers into it and to create that, like how to create danger with sexuality, and I tried to do that with Teddy.
ROHAN: You also have an interesting dynamic with Camila's character Roxana - what can you tease about that dynamic and how much he actually trusts her?
DIEGO: Nobody trusts anyone in this show. I think that's kind of cool. That's part of what makes it so interesting. But with the director, with Georgi, we always talked about siblings, you know, like two orphans, in a way, maybe they trust each other, maybe they love each other. Maybe in the past, they had some kind of relationship like, you don't know, but they're partners, that's the important part, right? So, it's more like a brother/sister, I think, kind of situation.
ROHAN: Teddy is sort of introduced as an almost philantrhopic kind of character, but he's obviously up to much more than just that. What did you think about when getting into character? How did you view this character?
DIEGO: I can't say any spoilers, but I think Teddy, he doesn't want money, he doesn't want to do good. He doesn't want to do something evil. He's actually trying to fill a void, right? So, before starting all the shooting, all my conversations were with Georgi. There were no rehearsals. It was just talking about trauma, just talking about trying to find the inner child in Teddy. And when you see the child, you see the kid, the little kid from the past, then you can understand the character. And I think that's what Teddy wants. Teddy wants to make his inner kid happy, in a way, his child happy.
ROHAN: Teddy is much different than your idealistic character from Babylon, he's far darker from the jump. What kind of challenges did that present when you're playing a dangerous villain versus playing the good guy?
DIEGO: Well, I enjoyed every minute, because there's different energies, you know, with Manny, with my Babylon character, everything was about his eyes, right? Everything was about how he sees things, and in a way, he's part of the audience, right? He's watching everything all the time. The audience is with him. But. in this case with Teddy, everything was about the body. So, it was such a different kind of performance. Let's not talk about like, good or bad, but like the way they move and the way they think that was the interesting part of playing Teddy, because everything was about, once again, sexual tension and attraction and, yeah, that.
Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston) thought he’d buried his past. Now living as Alex Goodwin – a low-level MI6 officer running a quiet surveillance unit in London – his life is comfortingly uneventful. Then one night a chance sighting of an old Roper mercenary prompts a call to action and leads Pine to a violent encounter with a new player: Colombian businessman Teddy Dos Santos (Diego Calva).
On this perilous new journey, Pine meets Roxana Bolaños (Camila Morrone), a businesswoman who reluctantly helps him infiltrate Teddy’s Colombian arms operation. Once in Colombia, Pine is plunged deep into a deadly plot involving arms and training of a guerrilla army. As allegiances splinter, Pine races to expose a conspiracy designed to destabilise a nation. And with betrayal at every turn, he must decide whose trust he needs to earn and how far he’s willing to go before it’s too late.