The plot thickens
Hong Chau in for a thrill(er) ride in 'The Night Agent'
A virtually nonstop paranoid conspiracy thriller in 10 episodes, Netflix’s “The Night Agent” launches Thursday with an incredibly realistic terrorist attack on the subway.
The bomb is spotted by low-level FBI agent Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso) who clears the car of passengers as it explodes. We learn he’s the Night Agent, manning a phone on the night shift to answer any agent’s emergency call.
Peter was put there by Diane Farr (Hong Chau), the White House Chief of Staff. They’re a combustible combination as the series continually offers new revelations that change our views of who these two are.
“I’m always attracted to multilayer characters, hard to pin down,” Chau , 43, said in an interview earlier this week. “It’s not about being good or bad. I think all politicians, everyone, if they’re successful, is some shade of grey. It’s not about good or bad, black or white — and that is absolutely true for Diane.”
Chau, Oscar-nominated opposite Brendan Fraser for “The Whale,” was surprised to be paged for the silver-haired Farr.
“I was already a fan of Shawn Ryan from his previous shows” — “The Shield,” “S.W.A.T.” — “and it was a wonderful surprise to get the invitation from him.
“I’ve never done a political thriller before. I read the book prior to talking to Shawn and our show veers quite a bit from the book. So I asked him what he wanted to do with the show, Was he trying to say anything other than to entertain us?
“He gave a really interesting answer. He said he wanted to explore the dynamics between men and women when they work together in a professional setting. How they disagree. How they make decisions together. How they accomplish things.
“That,” she added of the series with its female POTUS, “was a really sophisticated question to have in the back of our brains as we were filming. You see it, obviously with my character, but there’s the Secret Service agent and the president. It was nice to get to imagine that and hopefully prepare ourselves for when it does happen one day.”
It’s easy to see why Chou, the daughter of
Catholic Vietnamese immigrants who fled the Communists, calls this, “The best time of my life right now.
“It really is. Everything is happening for me professionally but also in my personal life. I have a beautiful two-year-old daughter who’s just my world.
“And I’m going to be shooting in Boston soon! A movie with Matt Damon, ‘The Instigators” which is action packed and a very, very fun and entertaining movie.”