The Night Agent Interview: Hong Chau on That Finale & Working on Asteroid City
17What do you get when you combine a spy thriller with a bit of romance and mix in a twisty political drama? You get The Night Agent. Created by Shawn Ryan, who is best known for his work on The Shield and Timeless, among other TV series, The Night Agent follows FBI Agent Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso) as he becomes embroiled in a conspiracy that threatens the highest offices of our government. Thrown together with a witness, Rose Larkin (Luciane Buchanan), The Night Agent is a political action thriller that is sure to leave you guessing until the end. At the top of the proverbial food chain in this story we have Hong Chau's Diane Farr, the President's chief of staff. We spoke to Chau about working with Ryan and diving into the character of Diane for this Netflix series.
If you haven't seen the series yet, stop and go and watch the ten episode season before you watch our interview. We get into a very spoilery conversation about the end of the series. Chau has starred in hit shows like Watchmen and Homecoming, and appeared in films like Downsizing, The Menu, and most recently The Whale, the latter's performance earning her an Academy Award nomination.
We discussed with Chau about how she approached her character Diane, one of the characters who must navigate the political complicated waters of the White House, what it was like to work with Shawn Ryan, and how the iconic look of Diane (with a full mane of grey hair) came to be. On working with Ryan and the complexities of her character, Chau said:
I've never worked in this genre before, so I was really looking forward to that, and I also wanted to work with Shawn Ryan. So when we were first talking to each other, I asked Shawn why he wanted to work on this show, what did it mean to him, because there's so many things you could work on. Why this one? And one of the things he said that stood out to me was that he wanted to sort of investigate the different dynamics between men and women when they have to work together in a professional setting and what that looks like, what the difficulties are, how they get things done.
And so it was nice to get to play in this fictional world. We have a female president on the show and Diane Farr, my character, is her chief of staff. So I'm really looking out for her best interest and doing everything that I can. And, you know, because there's so many different interest groups and so many different departments and personalities that you have to navigate, you know, every day is a different day. And you have to say and do things that may not look good on paper, and I thought that was really interesting because that's so real and so true to life. I mean, I don't know if you can be a successful politician without knowing how to bend the rules and when. So, that was really fun for me.
Chau has a lot more coming up after The Night Agent, from working with Wes Anderson on his upcoming film Asteroid City, to being a part of Yorgos Lanthimos' anthology film And, to joining Matt Damon and Casey Affleck in a heist thriller film by Doug Liman called The Instigators. We couldn't let her go without asking her about one of these films, and she had a fun anecdote about what it was like working on Asteroid City. On working with Anderson and seeing Francis Ford Coppola at breakfast, she said:
It was an amazing experience. I've been a fan of Wes Anderson for a really, really long time. His movies have a very distinct look. He's a singular voice as a filmmaker and that's always what I'm looking for. I think it's so rare, especially nowadays, when filmmakers, artists, are really struggling to put out something that is unique to them and is really true to their vision and their voice because they haven't had that body of work behind them. And so Wes Anderson is really one of the few filmmakers we have left, who can just keep doing what they want to do, you know, there's nobody who can come in there and give him notes on anything, which I think is so fabulous.
So, as with all of his films, they have an amazing ensemble cast, and so I did get to meet a lot of people when I was working on that. And it was just kind of like, oh my gosh, there's Jeff Goldblum. Oh my gosh, there's Bryan Cranston. Oh my gosh. Adrian Brody, like it was just, it was a really, really fun time. And then also, I walked into the cafeteria one day at the place that we were staying and Francis Ford Coppola was just having breakfast. Like, he wasn't in the movie, he was just there hanging out. So that was pretty incredible.
The Night Agent is now available to stream on Netflix.
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