Why it took 10 years for actor Tom Hiddleston to return with The Night Manager 2

NEW YORK – Released in 2016, the first season of The Night Manager was one of the most acclaimed British spy shows of the 2000s.

A hit with critics and audiences, it was praised for its cinematic adaptation of British writer John le Carre’s 1993 novel of the same name – about British soldier-turned-hotel manager Jonathan Pine, who is recruited to help take down an international arms dealer.

But a decade would pass before the Emmy-winning series returned for a second season, now streaming on Prime Video.

And star Tom Hiddleston says the long interval allowed the story and his character Jonathan – who has set his sights on yet another arms dealer – to evolve and reflect the fragmented world of today.

At a press event in New York earlier in January, the English actor says one reason it took so long was that le Carre had written only one book about Jonathan.

“We made the first one knowing full well we were going to adapt that novel and it would be complete.

“So, as we were making it, there were no plans to develop a second season,” explains Hiddleston. The 44-year-old is best known for playing the titular antihero in the Disney+ series Loki (2021 to 2023) and Marvel films such as Thor (2011) and The Avengers (2012).

But after The Night Manager’s successful debut at the 2016 Berlin Film Festival, the cast and creators – among them le Carre, an executive producer – realised they had something special.

“We all went back to the hotel afterwards thrilled with how it had been received,” Hiddleston recalls.

“And we sat down, and le Carre leant across the table with a twinkle in his eye and said, ‘Perhaps we might make some more.’

“But we all thought, ‘Okay – but there’s no more novel. There’s no second book.’”

The team then began rolling their sleeves up and thinking about how they might go about it, says the actor, who also headlined the action adventure film Kong: Skull Island (2017).

Le Carre, a former British intelligence officer who penned several spy novels – such as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Constant Gardener – which have been adapted into films, had many ideas for Season 2.

Meanwhile, the first season went on to win Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series for Danish film-maker Susanne Bier at the 2016 Emmys, where Hiddleston and his co-stars Olivia Colman and Hugh Laurie picked up acting nominations.

But the writers’ determination to keep the show current kept being outpaced by the real world.

“What was complex about it was that every time, world events were moving faster than the process of development,” Hiddleston says.

In 2020, le Carre – whose real name was David Cornwell – died at age 89, but not before he “communicated that he loved the show and would love for us to do more”.

Shortly after, screenwriter David Farr came up with an idea to set the follow-up in Colombia and link it to the country’s notorious drug cartels.

And this time, Jonathan steps away from his low-level desk job for British intelligence to chase down Colombian arms dealer Teddy Dos Santos (Diego Calva).

But 10 years have also passed since the events of Season 1, and the series reflects that.

“There have been so many political, cultural and environmental changes – and a pandemic,” says Hiddleton, who is engaged to English actress Zawe Ashton, 41, and has two children with her, born in 2022 and 2025.

“So much has happened and the world, in some senses, is more fragmented and uncertain.”

At the same time, Jonathan is older and wiser. “He’s got this sharp desire to understand the world as it really is, not as it appears to be. And that’s a great thing I admire about him.”