Yahoo Lifestyle ‘The Night Agent’: Gabriel Basso On Peter’s Season 2 Decisions & Consequences, Season 3 Mission & First Footage That Will “Shock” People
SPOILER ALERT: The story includes details about Season 2 of Netflix’s The Night Agent.
The first official mission as a Night Agent for Gabriel Basso’s Peter Sutherland was as traumatic as the unofficial one from Season 1 that drew him into the dangerous world of Night Action. After his partner was killed in a botched surveillance operation in Bangkok, Peter, suspecting a mole within Night Action, went on his own in New York to try and find answers.
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He was soon joined by his Season 1 charge Rose (Luciane Buchanan) who became his partner, sounding board and moral compass in Season 2. The two raced to track down the leak, which led them to a terrorist plot to unleash an experimental chemical weapon on New York City.
Already in a dark place, Peter faced tough calls in Season 2, opting to lie to Iranian informant Noor (Arienne Mandi) about her family’s extraction. He also went rogue, releasing a criminal, Solomon, from custody and procuring a top-secret UN document for Solomon’s shady boss Jacob Monroe in exchange for information on Rose’s whereabouts. As Peter admits, “I have sh*tty options, so I’m doing the best I can.”
In the end, Peter saved Rose and the two thwarted the terrorist attack, but at the cost of his freedom and the duo’s relationship. To protect Rose, he asked her to stay away before surrendering to his Night Action boss Catherine and being taken into custody. In a finale cliffhanger twist, Catherine sprung Peter out of prison to give him his next assignment: becoming an errand boy for Jacob, now a top advisor to the newly elected U.S. President, and a double agent trying to protect Oval Office information from being sold to the highest bidder.
In an interview with Deadline, Basso speaks about Peter’s Season 2 journey, him trying to get out of the shadow of his traitor father to only become one himself. He discusses the scene where Peter takes the call about the botched extraction mission but keeps calm and lies so they could get the intel from Noor. Basso also addresses Peter’s decision to make a deal with Jacob and sacrifice his freedom for Rose’s life. Additionally, he discusses Peter and Rose’s relationship and him doing bigger stunts in Season 2, revealing which was the hardest scene to film. He also teases Season 3, including scenes he already has shot in Istanbul that “will shock a lot of people.”
For answers to more burning questions about Season 2, plus Season 3 clues (including which Season 1 character will be coming back), read Deadline’s interview with The Night Agent showrunner Shawn Ryan.
DEADLINE: It is tough for Peter after the events from last season. He is still coming to terms with his father’s complicated legacy, and then he lost his partner in the first episode of Season 2. Talk about how he has been dealing with all that in Season 2 and the dark place he found himself after his partner’s murder?
GABRIEL BASSO: I think any job where you’re putting your life on the line, that has an inherent acceptance level to death that is, on paper, you can wrap your head around. And then the reality hits you, and I think that it’s way more devastating in person, and you start asking yourself that question of, could I have done something to prevent it?
I have a scene with Sami [Marwan Kenzari], the Night Agent that comes in to help save Noor’s family and get them out. He said, “Don’t play that game.” And I remember, that’s something that not only is the reality of losing your partner there, but then the question of, well, we were compromised, so I can’t trust anyone. Coming off of Season 1 of not being able to trust anyone either, I think Peter is just in a very fragile place mentally.
DEADLINE: He does have trust issues? It seems like Rose is the only person he could trust. How is he navigating that? He seemed to be making progress and eventually started accepting Catherine.
BASSO: I’m not sure he trusts … I mean, he trusts Rose, but it’s also, what can he entrust to her? I think he’s walking that line, if he might have trust for her, but she’s not read in on a lot of this stuff, and he doesn’t want to put her at risk. So even though he could tell her the truth, should he tell her the truth? And that responsibility weighs on him. As far as his relationship with Catherine goes, I think they both have a mutual hesitancy to trust one another completely.
DEADLINE: You mentioned the storyline with Noor. I want to talk about that scene where Peter is on the phone with Sami who is telling him how bad the extraction of her family from Iran had gone. Peter says just a couple of words the entire time, “Yeah, right, understood,” so Noor doesn’t suspect anything. How was it, staying composed, playing that scene and the gravity of it, with just your face?
BASSO: Yeah, that was, I think, one of the heavier moments of Season 2. But also, like you’re saying, I had to stay composed for the sake of the lie. It was difficult to find that balance of giving Shawn [Ryan] and the director and the writers what they wanted, and also, if I’m too impacted, then when I turn around and lie to her, then it’s obvious that something’s wrong. They definitely helped me find that line, because they were the ones watching it. I was just trying to make it realistic, compartmentalize it all like it’s almost dissociative: you’re getting that information, and you have to be so analytical about it, because if you were to think about it being a person, it becomes emotional.
DEADLINE: There was another big decision that Peter had to make, which he made with no hesitation, to become a traitor himself, let Solomon go and make a deal with his boss. It was his life for Rose’s. Talk about him making that call and going against pretty much everything he was taught, just to save Rose — other people too, but mostly Rose.
BASSO: Yeah, I think that’s the sort of moral quandary he’s in of, can you do the right thing of saving a life, but in the wrong way? He obviously loves Rose, he feels responsible for her, and I think it’s his sense of responsibility, and not his love for her, that motivates him to make that decision where he is okay with her staying, he signed off on her stay, and he said, I’m responsible for you. And now that’s in conflict with what Catherine has told him to do.
But I don’t think he’s thinking, oh man, I love Rose so much, I have to save her. I think he says in his head, at least, his justification is, I’m responsible for her. I told her that I would protect her, and now I’m not doing that. And so I think in order for himself to sleep at night, he’s willing to do that.
DEADLINE: But he also is well aware of the consequences, he knows that he may spend the rest of his life in prison. He still makes that sacrifice while also possibly letting a sensitive document fall into the wrong hands. How does he reconcile all that?
BASSO: I think there’s just a lot of uncertainty there, and the things he can control are saving the person he promised he would protect. He’s doing what he can with what he has but there’s really no right decision to make there. He does end up saving a lot of people, but at the cost of his freedom. So I think that’s his sense of, I’ll say, honor, and not being willing to compromise his principles for the sake of convenience is what makes that choice compelling.
DEADLINE: Is Peter finally at peace with what his father did?
BASSO: They call it target fixation in skydiving or motorcycle riding: if you look at an object when you’re trying to avoid the object, you’re going to hit it because you’re focusing on it. And I think he spent so much energy focusing on not becoming his father, that he’s become his father. I think it was a line in Kung Fu Panda, “You meet your destiny on the road you take to avoid it” or something like that. Wise words from a turtle. But yeah, I think Peter has spent so much of his life obsessing over not being a traitor, that doing something like that and being forced into that position, his destiny now has come full circle. (Watch Basso crack up over the Kung Fu Panda reference below.)
DEADLINE: Peter’s relationship with Rose started under a lot of trauma last season. She came back in his life, and she actually saved his life at least twice in Season 2. Talk about their changed dynamic and how their co-dependent relationship never went into a full-blown romance, with just one kiss the entire season?
BASSO: You can have love for someone without physically expressing it. I think that’s, I don’t want to say trope, but a lazy way of showing that two people care about each other is having them hook up. Sacrificing your life for someone or putting your life at risk to save someone, I think, is a bigger testament of love than giving them a kiss or something like that. The relationship is important to both of them, and you see that through their commitment to one another and keeping one another alive, regardless if that means they’re going to be together, at least they’ll have done what they can to protect the other.
DEADLINE: Let’s talk about the stunts. You skydived to deliver the Season 2 trailer to Netflix’s Christmas NFL game. BTW, you know that trailers do not need to be carried on flash drives, right?
BASSO: I thought of a funnier version, where I just toss it out the window, like we do two versions where you think I’m going to skydive, and I just flick it out when it lands in the stadium.
DEADLINE: Or you just push a button and stream the trailer off the Internet. Anyway, you did that stunt, and in the behind-the-scenes video for it, you mentioned that you like doing physical stunts, and the writers leaned into it the second season and gave you more. Can you tell us more about it?
BASSO: Yes. Look, anybody can do anything without pressure applied. And I think there’s a security that I have in my ability to do certain things, the more I push those things to the limit. Anybody can do dry fire drills in their apartment with a SIRT pistol, and then it’s like, doing those things while people are shooting at you takes an entirely different level of composure.
DEADLINE: So how’s it doing stunts? Did you really jump into a river, jump off a building? What was the most complicated stunt you got to do yourself in Season 2?
BASSO: The initial leap off the building, that was Josiah, my stunt double, because that was an insurance thing. And then they actually hung me. They built that wire about 15 feet off the ground, and I was doing all the shuffling across the wire, but the initial jump was Josiah.
I think the first stunt I did in Bangkok was that jump through that balsa wood window.
I don’t know about complicated, everything’s complicated in its own way. There were just so many stunts. Fighting with the gas masks on was tough. It was tough to see things because your peripheral vision was so limited that reacting to punches or getting them right was difficult, and all the fog and everything.
DEADLINE: Was that the hardest scene to film this season?
BASSO: Man, there’s so many that were not fun to film, that were demanding, and we had a short amount of time to do and it was difficult, logistically, but yes, the hardest was probably the stuff with the gas mask.
Honestly, it was so tough running around in those things and not hyperventilating or getting hypoxic because it’s like wearing those altitude masks, the amount you’re actually breathing is tough and throw a big fight and then running and breathing heavily and having to act like you’re exhausted and taking big breaths and everything. It’s just tough to stay focused because all you want to do is take the mask off and breathe.
DEADLINE: You already shot scenes for Season 3 in Istanbul. How was it — was there a lot of running and jumping? And what can you tease about where Peter is headed? Because I don’t think he is formally a Night Agent anymore, he is going off the books with the new operation for Catherine.
BASSO: We were shooting in Istanbul, we wrapped there. It’s one of my favorite cities, I think I’ve ever been. It’s a beautiful city, it’s a beautiful culture, the people there were great. We got a lot on camera that I think it will shock a lot of people. It’s really cool.
But as far as his job, yeah, I think he’s still technically a night agent. He’s still working for Catherine, but his assignment within Night Action is to do this other job and to be a double agent. But everyone has deniability. It’s almost like, if he gets busted, Catherine’s not going to pick up the phone and bail him out. So he’s in a very fragile place and alone in a lot of ways. We’ll see where that goes, where that gets him.
DEADLINE: So it’s going to be now a day and night agent, a double agent.
BASSO: Exactly, I wish there was like a Golden Hour Agent, so we won’t do all the night shoots, a nice springtime, day, early afternoon agent. (Watch below Basso talking about filming Season 3 in Istanbul.)
DEADLINE: Can you talk about that twist at the very end when Peter was sprung out of detention for that chat with Catherine in front of the White House? We saw some of the interrogations, he seemed to have accepted his fate, so this must have come as a big surprise.
BASSO: I think so. I think him getting that deal offered to him was a surprise, and then I think Peter’s the kind of person that lives with the decisions he’s made. He made those decisions to save Rose, to do the things he had to do, and now he’s willing to accept it. He’s not trying to justify it or put the decision on someone else. He makes the decisions — right or wrong — then he lives with the consequences. It’s very rare nowadays to have someone hold themselves accountable.
DEADLINE: And in terms of, like, what we have to wrap up in terms of the level of action that we’re going to see in next season, are you raising the level again?
BASSO: I think so. We were able to pull something off in Istanbul that is pretty crazy. A lot of the things that we did on the show, movies get with a lot of prep time, and we don’t have that prep time, and we don’t have that shoot time. And so some of the stuff that we’ve got, I’m very proud of everyone involved, from the crew to the actors to the stuntmen, just because we’re doing things that movies get so much more time to do and still struggle with getting and we’re doing with not as much time, not as much resource. It’s just cool, I’m proud of everyone involved.
DEADLINE: Will we see Peter smile a little bit more, will there be a bit more levity next season, or is it going to be still dark?
BASSO: I don’t know. It depends. I react to the situation at hand. If someone tells a funny joke in Season 3, I promise I’ll laugh.
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