“I remember a dinner we had with my dad, Stephen Garrett (Showrunner/Executive Producer), and others who were involved in the show, and somebody piped up at the table and said, ‘So, what are we going to do for season two?’ My dad blanched at the question, and then he smiled, and we moved on,” Cornwell said. “A couple of days later, he shared a note with the first ideas for a second season, which are ideas we’ve moved a long way on from and have nothing to do with the show we’ve ended up making, but that opened the door and gave us permission to start thinking about how we do a second season.”
Technically, choosing to take the show in a different direction is all well and good, but when the idea for season 2 came from John Le Carré, a man almost universally acknowledged to be one of the greatest modern writers of his generation and who wrote the novel the first season of your show is based on, well. Maybe it’s worthwhile to listen to his ideas a little bit more carefully than most.
But, according to Cornwell, The Night Manager screenwriter David Farr has still managed to stay true to le Carré’s general vision and vibe.
“David is an extraordinary figure and a very talented man. He may not want to admit it, but he is a tremendous le Carré buff. He’s read every one of my father’s books and thought deeply about them,” he said.
Hiddleston is even more effusive in his praise. “ David Farr has achieved the impossible. The Night Manager was based on a novel by John le Carré; there was no second novel, no sequel,” he said. “David has written it with all the sophistication and complexity that le Carré would approve of and admire.”
Now, your mileage can and will likely vary about whether this particular level of hype is warranted (or even capable of being reached), but well, it’s certainly gotten our attention for the show’s second season.
