'The Night Manager': Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie Talk Their Deadly But Charming Face-Off

Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie in ‘The Night Manager’

“I don’t know that I’d make a very good spy,” says Tom Hiddleston. This, from a man widely spoken of as the next James Bond. We’re discussing his latest role in the AMC miniseries The Night Manager, based on John le Carré’s 1993 novel, premiering April 19. Hiddleston plays Jonathan Pine, an unassuming hotel supervisor who turns out to be a very, very good spy. So much so that he’s recruited by British Intelligence to bring down international arms dealer and billionaire Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie).

Hiddleston gives the spy question a little more thought — he gives everything a lot of thought — and then he laughs. “Let’s be honest, I’d make a hopeless spy because people know who I am. It would be very obvious.”

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That much is indisputable: these days Tom Hiddleston couldn’t exactly sidle in to a room and order a smoothie. Thanks to roles as Hank Williams in I Saw the Light, the lead in the excellent High-Rise, and most of all as Loki in the ongoing, seemingly neverending Avengers franchise, Hiddleston is already that guy on the poster. But it’s Jonathan Pine in The Night Manager — well-turned-out, well-spoken, intelligent but reserved — whom he feels is closest to himself. Even if he could never be a spy.

“Pine felt strangely new for me as an actor because it felt quite close to home — I haven’t played close to home. I’ve played at the extremes of my range — Loki and Hank Williams are quite far away from me,” he says. “With Pine, there was a lot in him that I could relate to. It was something about his moral conviction. His private soul. He’s very hard — he keeps his cards close to his chest, and I think that’s very true of me.”

Ying to Pine’s yang is Richard Roper, and in an inspired piece of casting, The Night Manager pairs off Hiddleston with fellow debonair Brit Hugh Laurie. If Dr. Gregory House behaved badly but was essentially good, “Dickie Roper” is the other way ‘round. He starts out a wellspring of urbane charm, but a few episodes in, as we start to see what those weapons he’s selling to the highest bidder can do, we understand why le Carré in the original novel labeled Roper “The Worst Man in the World.”

“Dickie Roper’s character just rang true to me immediately,” says Laurie. “I felt like I knew how he walked and talked and dressed and moved. He was beautifully formed — but also a character who seemed to be the focus of such anger on le Carré’s part. It’s an indictment of a particular class and a particular notion of entitlement. Entitlement to the fruits of the earth, but also a feeling that rules — the rules that bind us all together — don’t apply to the Ropers of this world. Rules are for little people.”

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Laurie is a longtime le Carré fan and has read all of his books. When he first read The Night Manager in the ‘90s, he loved the story so much — “irresistibly romantic and noble and stirring and thrilling and important”— that within three chapters, he was on the phone trying to buy the rights, with him as producer.

“Unfortunately, it turns out I am absolutely pathetic in the role of producer. I still honestly don’t really know what ‘optioning’ a book means — I’ve never done it before or since, but I knew that was what grown ups did,” Laurie says. “Anyway, it had already gone. Pre-publication, Sydney Pollack had bought it. He had it for 20-odd years and never made anything with it.”

Laurie with co-star Elizabeth Debicki

When the rights reverted to the le Carré estate and a six-part TV adaptation by David Farr (Hanna) was suggested, le Carré’s son Simon Cornwall came back to Laurie.

“He asked me if I was interested. I said, ‘My God, I’ve loved this for 20 years. I’ll do anything. I’ll make the sandwiches.’ That was about two years ago, and here we are,” Laurie says.

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Back in 1993, Laurie admits he was thinking of himself in the Jonathan Pine role.

“Unfortunately, I got older. I still, of course, have hankerings for the character of Pine, and there were days when I had to sit back and watch Tom Hiddleston being virile and charming… and it was f–king galling to watch. But that’s part of the story, of course,” Laurie says. “Roper is looking at the young, virile version of himself and dreaming about what might have been.”

And who wouldn’t want to be Tom Hiddleston? When the series went out in the UK earlier this year to stellar ratings and critical acclaim, the appearance of Hiddleston’s bare derriere caused as much of a stir as sightings of his naked torso. Look out for #hiddlesbum trending some time around episode four.

The tension in The Night Manager comes not just from whether or not Pine will be unmasked once he infiltrates Roper’s organization (or when he’ll next drop his pants). It’s also because Pine and Roper are so obviously two sides of the same coin. It’s the same with the actors: both Laurie and Hiddleston share an upmarket Eton and Cambridge education; both are sporting (filming a tennis match got their competitive hackles up: “I aced Laurie, it’s on camera, and he found it, frankly, f–king infuriating, because he’s brilliant at everything,” says Hiddleston); and both of them are sex symbols. It follows that the characters they play are attractive in several ways. But only one of them is a child killer by proxy.

“Pine is drawn to Roper,” Hiddleston says, “because actually, they’re quite similar. And Roper is drawn to Pine because he recognizes that similarity. They play tennis together, they share the same frame of reference. I hope the audience wonders whether Pine will be turned to the dark side and truly become a member of Roper’s crew. That’s the fascinating question mark within him.”

Laurie, Hiddleston, and Debicki with co-stars Olivia Colman and Tom Hollander

As for Tom Hiddleston, what about that question mark surrounding him?

“Yes, I have been asked the Bond question before. I love Bond. I’m such a fan; I get excited when I hear the theme tune,” he says. “But I leave that to the judges, whoever that may be.”

If those Bond judges watch The Night Manager (and look out for a vodka martini wink-nudge in a later episode), they may have their minds made up for them.

The Night Manager premieres Tuesday, April 19 at 10 p.m. on AMC.