“We are the group of your dreams!” The Night Manager is back – and more active Night manager

FOr screenwriter David Farr, the return of The Night Manager is a dream come true. literally. “After not thinking about the show for five years, a vivid image came to me in bed one night,” he says. “I saw a boy in a Colombian monastery, waiting for a black car to come over the hill. And for some strange reason, I knew who those characters were. Suddenly, I was half awake and the rest came out of me. I wrote it all down in case I had forgotten. And in the morning, I looked at my notes and thought: ‘This is good, actually.’”

He’s not wrong. It’s a special drama that can leave a decade-long gap between series but still be welcomed back with widespread excitement. It’s a testament to the quality of The Night Manager that its return is the first must-see show of 2026.

The 2016 premiere is based on John le Carré’s 1993 novel — the first novel he wrote after the collapse of the Soviet Union — and follows hotelier-turned-spy Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston) as he goes undercover to bring down arms dealer Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie), also known as “The Worst Man in the World.” Farr’s lavish adaptation became a television event, attracting 10 million viewers and selling in 180 countries. Hiddleston, Laurie, and Olivia Colman all won Golden Globe Awards for their performances. But there was a small problem: there was no other book.

“I’ve been a fan of Le Carré since I watched Smiley’s People with my dad when I was 10,” Farr says. “When I was asked to adapt The Night Manager, I was afraid. But I had clear ideas, like taking it to the Arab Spring, and le Carré loved that. There was no discussion of more. It was a standalone thing. When it was a big success, there was an appetite for a sequel. I didn’t feel it. People might have thought I was crazy but I didn’t want to spoil it by making a sequel.”

Years later, that fateful dream came. “Le Carré died in 2020 but he blessed the second season, which is important,” says Farr. “Tom [Hiddleston] He was a little like me. And he’s absolutely right that he didn’t want to ruin something beautiful by doing something less beautiful. When he got on the ship, we were far away from it.”

“I always wished I could return to this role,” Hiddleston says. “David’s vision made that possibility real. It’s been ten years and it hasn’t been easy – in the world, in this country, for all of us. Imagine how complicated it must be for those who work in the security and intelligence services. Returning to the character of Payne, bearing on my own experience of the last decade, was an exciting prospect.”

We meet Payne again in flashbacks, and reunite with former worker Angela Burr (Coleman) to identify the body. In present-day London, he is the director of MI6’s secret “Night Owls” unit. “I knew Payne wasn’t going to go back to normal life,” Hiddleston says. “The knight errant, burning with moral outrage, will need to remain on active duty. Once he sees behind the curtain, there is no turning back.”

His team specializes in night-time surveillance – mainly of Mayfair hotels and casinos, which provide a route into terrorist cells and enemy networks. He’s still a night manager, just a different type. “We’re being watched,” says his girlfriend Sally (Hayley Squires). “We are not the show.” Their work is “not the most glamorous or dramatic,” as one of their bosses says smugly. Just wait.

Bane’s past remains buried until one of Roper’s ex-soldiers unexpectedly discovers it somewhere. After investigating beyond the records, the team discovers that he is now working as a coordinator for South American cartels – in particular, Colombian arms dealer Teddy dos Santos (Diego Calva). Using a charity as a cover for his crime, just as Roper did, Dos Santos is following in his predecessor’s destructive footsteps.

As the past is used as a weapon against him, Bane begins to feel like he is chasing ghosts. When someone close to him is murdered and the operation goes tragically wrong, Bane doesn’t know who to trust. Is there a leak in his team? Are intelligence services illegally selling British weapons abroad? With the help of glamorous businesswoman Roxana Bolaños (Camila Morrone), he sets out to infiltrate Dos Santos’ operation.

With a budget of £20 million, the first series was a location-hopping epic. The new show, co-produced by Prime Video, is just as globe-trotting. The opening two episodes alone take us to Egypt, Barcelona, ​​Miami and Medellin. “The business is evolving significantly,” Farr says. “We’re more like Bourne than Mission: Impossible or Bond, and more human than superheroes, but there are amazing scenes in beautiful places. Basically, escapism to keep us warm on winter Sunday nights.”

Hiddleston also spends a lot of time running. Is he the new Tom Cruise? “I can’t speak for the other Tom,” he laughs. “I just stand in awe and admiration. But we talked about Payne’s need to run as a form of physical catharsis. There’s a deep well of pain and trauma at his center. His running clears his head, cools his heart, and calms his racing mind.”

He enjoyed his reunion with Coleman. “It was fun working with Olivia again,” he says. “A lot has happened in our lives — she won an Oscar and became a national treasure — but we stayed in touch along the way. Le Carré described the agent-dealer relationship as very intimate, almost like family.”

A welcome dose of down-to-earth humor is added by Squires’s Sally, whose London street smarts contrast with Hiddleston’s smooth Etonian charm. “I really enjoyed writing Sally,” Farr says. “It gives the Britishness it really needs. A bit of old-fashioned Le Carré.”

“Tom and I are an unusual duo,” says Squires. “But it works. From the beginning, Sally senses there is something more to Bane. When she discovers the truth, she makes a conscious decision to follow him into the field. The journey she goes on is terrifying but it allows her to understand her own abilities. I would be useless at spying in real life. My nerves wouldn’t handle it. And that made acting particularly fun.” She smiles. “I underestimated the amount of running I had to do, though. I wish I’d been warned about that.”

The first series starred Elizabeth Debicki as Jade, Roper’s girlfriend. The sequel has more of Morrone’s deadly assassin. “I love this new version of the female lead,” Morrone says. “Roxana is something new in spy fiction. She’s a hustler, and smarter than the guys give her credit for. She constantly plays both sides but in reality, the only side she’s on is her own. Whenever you think she’s going to be a classic lover or damsel in distress, she turns that on its head. She’s a true egalitarian. She loves the game the same way these guys do. And she has a backstory that makes her a firecracker.”

2026 Pine is older and wiser but no less deadly. As Hiddleston said: “He’s got a few scars on the outside and on the inside.” Farr agrees: “He’s vowed that the havoc he’s wreaked on people’s lives will never happen again. He’s a bit of a danger junkie and totally addicted to fake identities — that’s why we love spies, right? — but he chooses to live a safe, quiet life. But to Bane, that’s half a life. When he unleashes that repressed side of himself, he’s explosive.”

“We’re going to take you on a roller coaster ride,” Hiddleston promises. “Bane puts himself in extraordinary danger. We watch him risk, sacrifice, seduce and betray to uncover the mystery. I hope the audience is thrilled by this chase.”

For Farr, the contract between series had its creative advantages. “It’s a timescale you rarely get in films or TV shows, and that was a real gift. The past is so far away but it haunts Bane. Tom found that fascinating. He looks different too. More chiseled and manly. Rewatch the first series and he’ll look like a puppy!”

Bane himself has changed but so has the world. Farr appreciated the opportunity to reverse 10 years of global turmoil. “This show is about arms deals and how they are used as geopolitical leverage, sometimes in really terrible ways. It happened with the Al-Yamamah contracts.” [under which the UK government sold arms to Saudi Arabia]which was shameful. Recently, when it looked like Ukraine might reach a peace deal, defense company stock prices fell across Europe. Since Iraq, everyone realizes that war makes money for certain people. There is a chaotic and dirty power infrastructure. Richard Roper was the embodiment of this. Now it becomes clear. Look at the bombs dropped on Gaza in the past two years. “The other thing that has changed is the rise of populism and the chaos it brings.”

The Columbia background came at the right time by chance. “It has become more important than we imagined. South America is now an incredibly hot spot, especially Venezuela. This show is in no way about Donald Trump, but le Carré certainly takes a close look at how Britain and America use some of the levers of power in foreign policy.” The new setting also returns to the source material. “The novel is actually set in Central America,” Farr says. “I took it to the Arab world, but Roper’s hideout was originally in Panama, and he was trafficking weapons to Colombian drug traffickers. Now we’ve come full circle.”

The first series made headlines for Hiddleston’s nude sex scenes with Debicki. This time, he is torn between Calva and Moroni. “It gets very hot,” Farr says. “The world of intelligence has always been a sexually fluid place. Le Carré explored it in his books, and it went right back to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I would argue that in the first series, Pine and Roper’s relationship was somewhat homoerotic. I wanted to explore a new sexual fluidity and Diego Calva was perfect for that. He has this innate openness and availability. So, yeah, there’s a steamy triangle going on.” Can we expect the Daily Mail’s wrath again? Far laughs. “If I don’t get the Daily Mail in a lather, I’ve made a mistake!”

“It’s a complex problem,” Morrone says. “A power game where they’re all on top at different times and they all have guns pointed at each other under the table.” The three actors have become very close, and there is now a Night Manager WhatsApp group. “Tom created it and called it Mi Amigos,” says Morrone. “It’s him, Diego, and me, so your dream group! What’s being sent? If I told you, I would have to kill you!”

The Night Manager airs on BBC One on New Year’s Day at 9.05pm.