Here's a great formula for a successful TV miniseries.
Adapt a story from a best-selling author.
Add some top-notch actors, exciting locations, cinema-quality photography and an ace director.
Oh, yeah. Make it British. American TV viewers love British accents.
That's what AMC hopes will take place when its new six-part miniseries The Night Manager debuts at 9 p.m. Tuesday.
AMC, the basic cable channel that brings us premium cable quality with such shows as Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul and The Walking Dead, has adapted one of John le Carre's most memorable and critically acclaimed novels. The Night Manager (1993) is part spy tale and part organized crime novel. The best-seller has been translated into more than 20 languages and has sold more than a million copies in North America alone.
Fan favorite Hugh Laurie (House) stars alongside Tom Hiddleston (The Avengers, War Horse, I Saw the Light), and Oscar winner Susanne Bier (In a Better World) directs.
In an AMC interview, Bier characterizes the novel as "a relentlessly exhilarating thriller with profound emotional depths. Its narrative is carried by two secretive, alluring protagonists."
She notes that screenwriter David Farr's script "perfectly orchestrates the central cat-and-mouse game between these two irresistibly flawed characters."
About her two stars, Bier says, "Their shared soulfulness, precision and sharp humor will seduce us all, both through Roper's charming yet insidious manipulations and Pine's unsettling enigmatic struggle to do the right thing."
Aside: Yes, I know that Laurie is British (born in Oxford), but it's still strange after all those years as Gregory House to watch him using his natural accent.
The miniseries is a contemporary interpretation of le Carre's drama (there are some differences) and the first TV adaptation of one of his novels in more than 20 years.
AMC is billing it as a tale that "will bring together love, loss and revenge in a complex story of modern criminality."
The Night Manager follows former British soldier Jonathan Pine (Hiddleston), who is recruited to go undercover to take down international arms dealer Richard Roper. Pine "navigates the shadowy recesses of Whitehall and Washington where an unholy alliance operates between the intelligence community and the secret arms trade."
Laurie plays the nefarious Roper. The billionaire "has built an empire from his trade in human life, selling arms to the highest bidder and purchasing whatever souls he can along the way."
When Pine saves his son, Roper welcomes him into his family. And that may just prove to be Roper's undoing.
Surprise: Laurie is a marvelously effective villain. One critic labeled his performance "vulpine." That's not to be confused with foxy.
About the miniseries, Laurie says, "I loved The Night Manager when it was published, and for more than 20 years have yearned to see it realized on screen. I am now thrilled and honored to have the frontest of front row seats. All the moving parts are finely machined -- we just have to not mess it up."
Hiddleston adds, "I could not be more excited. [Playing] Jonathan Pine is a thrilling prospect. Described by le Carre as a 'sometime army wolfchild with a special unit in the British forces, caterer, chef, itinerant hotelier, perpetual escapee from emotional entanglements, collector of other people's languages, self-exiled creature of the night and sailor without a destination,' Pine is the most mysterious and complex kind of British hero."
Here's a who's who among other characters to help you when all the deceit and double-dealing gets confusing.
• Angela Burr (Olivia Colman, Broadchurch). The obsessed intelligence operative is on a private crusade to bring down Roper. She finds common purpose in her recruitee Pine.
• Jed Marshall (Elizabeth Debicki, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.). The statuesque Jed is Roper's girlfriend and on the run from her past. In case you're wondering, Debicki is 6-foot-2.
• Maj. Lance Corkoran (Tom Hollander, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End). The venal "Corky" is Roper's fixer and chief of staff. He mistrusts Pine.
• Freddie Hamid (David Avery, Starred Up). Extremely violent, Hamid is the reason Pine takes on the job of going after Roper.
• Sophie Alekan (Aure Atika, World Without End). Alekan turns over damning documents to Pine and the results are exceedingly sanguinary and fatal.
Style on 04/17/2016