Golden oldies! NEW
Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow on starring as elderly spies in a new thriller…
The Old Man
Available: Wednesday 28 September
Genre: Thriller Season: 1 Eps: 7 (first two episodes from 28 Sept, then weekly)
Hollywood star Jeff Bridges plays Dan Chase, a former CIA agent who was involved in highly classified international espionage missions and disappeared 30 years ago in order to live out the rest of his days in quiet obscurity with his family. However, when an assassin breaks into his home in the middle of the night, Dan realises he’s no longer safe, and he’s forced to go on the run. With the FBI hot on his heels, the frail old man realises he has to tap back into the formidable spy he once was in order to have a chance of surviving.
Allies turned enemies
‘When you’re a spy, you morph yourself into different identities as needed,’ says Jeff. ‘In a way, you kind of lose your real identity – you don’t know who you really are, and that can be kind of disconcerting.’
While Dan comes to discover that he’s still a match for opponents half his age, he also learns that the FBI’S mission to apprehend him is being run by somebody who knows him better than almost anyone: Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Harold Harper (The Crown’s John Lithgow), who shares a deeply complicated history with Dan.
‘Circumstances have kept these two men apart,’ says John. ‘They were very close, and very involved in high-stakes and dangerous political activity 30 years ago, and they’ve had to stay apart for various reasons ever since. Part of the suspense of the season is when are their stories finally going to collide – and they do in a scene that’s the culmination of the season. It was played entirely inside an automobile, so we sat together for six days and never stopped talking!’