[This story contains major spoilers from the season two finale of The Night Manager.]
Diego Calva always knew that Teddy Dos Santos’ story could only end one way on The Night Manager.
In the long-awaited second season of the BBC/Prime Video spy thriller, Calva was introduced as Jonathan Pine’s (Tom Hiddleston) new antagonist, a young Mexican-Colombian arms dealer who turns out to be the biological son of Pine’s archnemesis Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie). Following the suspicious death of his superior Rex Mayhew (Douglas Hodge), who had been investigating a potential high-level leak within MI6 connected to the shipment of weapons to Colombia, Pine secretly infiltrated Teddy’s criminal enterprise under the alias of Matthew Ellis.
In Colombia, Pine crossed paths again with Roxana Bolaños (Camila Morrone), the woman he had tracked down and questioned in the wake of Mayhew’s death. Pine learned that Roxana was a Miami-based shipping broker whose company was owned by Teddy’s organization, and she had willingly participated in a suspicious shipment of machine tools between the U.K. and Colombia. Despite the fact that they could both blow each other’s cover, Pine used Roxana to get closer to the center of Teddy’s operation, which involved using illegally smuggled weapons to train a private army looking to overthrow the Colombian government.
As it turns out, Teddy was not the actual brains of the operation; he was always doing the bidding of Roper, who had faked his death in Egypt years earlier and has been attempting to rebuild his empire while hiding out in Colombia. After Pine’s alias was revealed, he managed to get Teddy alone and played him secret recordings of Roper revealing that he never intended to acknowledge Teddy as a true heir. In fact, Roper’s only loyalty has always remained with his other son, Danny (Noah Jupe), who he plans to visit at a boarding school in England.
Feeling betrayed by the only father he has ever known, Teddy secretly teamed up with Pine in the finale to redirect the final shipment of weapons in order to give international authorities the evidence they would need to put away Roper for good. After being tipped off by Roxana, who subtly suggested that Teddy has been working with Pine, Roper hatches a plan to use two different planes, sending the empty plane to the authorities and the real plane to the militants in the jungle. Once he fulfilled his end of the bargain with the militia, Roper, without flinching, shoots Teddy in the head in front of Pine, whose hands were literally and figuratively tied.
“I think Teddy’s journey should end the way it ends because Teddy is the soul of this season,” Calva tells The Hollywood Reporter of that brutal ending. “And if we kept him alive, the season and the journey of all the other characters will lose strength. Of course, it’s sad that Teddy dies, and it’s painful. But I was really, really happy when I read the beautiful writing of David [Farr]. He killed Teddy because that’s what makes Pine’s story come [back] even stronger.
“And now, Pine has a reason to continue,” Calva continues. “Roper kills Pine’s only brother. Pine’s mother [figure Angela, played by Olivia Colman, who was also killed off in the season two finale] just betrayed him, too. Now, his only friend just died in the hands of his most horrible enemy.”
Calva has died on camera before, but he jokes that filming Teddy’s death scene was particularly memorable because his own mother was on set that day. “Hugh Laurie, just before entering the set and killing me, hugged my mother and said, ‘Sorry, I have to kill our son,’” Calva recalls with a laugh. “That’s still a joke my mom likes to tell.”
Roxana’s ending, meanwhile, is left open-ended. After turning on both Pine and Teddy to save herself, Roxana is last seen at the airport preparing to board a flight back to Miami. “I’d be curious to see where she would go,” Morrone says, confirming that she has not had any discussions with Farr about her potential involvement in the final season he is writing now. “I do think that there is something in Roxy where she is addicted to the thrill and the game, and it fills a very big void in her heart.”
Calva and Morrone spoke to THR in separate conversations about their characters’ respective arcs and relationships with Pine and Roper. Morrone also offers a tease for her next project, Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, executive produced by Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer, below.
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Once you signed onto the second season, what conversations did you have with writer David Farr and director Georgi Banks-Davies about your character’s arc, and how did those discussions inform the way you thought about playing them?
DIEGO CALVA David told me this story, which I found very beautiful. He had this dream of a young boy and a car and a monastery, and then the idea of Teddy came to his mind. [Writer’s note: Read Farr’s own recount of the dream that inspired the second season here.] He told me he wanted to do something more soulful. He said that the first season, in his opinion, was too British. [Laughs.] It was too cold. He had been reading more of John le Carré’s books and listening to more interviews, and he realized that he was a true British guy in that he was always questioning the idea of being British and the idea of being a patriot.
He wanted to place this [new] character to try to challenge Pine’s soul. In the first season, Pine always fell in love with a woman, and it was always a situation of sexuality and power against Roper. So what could happen if Pine finds someone like him, another orphan, another guy that is also like a broken child?
My process to find Teddy was not in trying to find the way he looks or the way he moves — it was trying to find the way he feels. The moment I saw Teddy’s inner child, the moment I started to think about what we don’t see on the show, that was when I understood Teddy. When I understood that Teddy is actually this lonely kid with all this pain of being misunderstood, all these wishes, desires and expectations of being loved — that’s when Teddy came to life.
CAMILA MORRONE We talked about Colombia a lot — what that time in Colombia must have been like, what the politics of it were, and what that represented. It was important for me to have a clear understanding of Roxana’s backstory and what happened in her childhood for her to swing more right wing, as you might say, and work against the Colombian government.
It all linked back to that initial trauma in childhood when her father was murdered by the guerrillas, and his body was dropped in front of the property. She saw that with her mom at a very young age, and that very much shaped her worldview and her moral compass. I think that [moment] instilled so much fear in Roxana that she swung the other way on the pendulum, which is [that] she never wants to not be the person in power. That traumatic event very much changed the course of her life. I think that that’s why she’s so headstrong on being in power, even when it means being with the bad guys.
The early marketing for this season suggested that there would be a classic love triangle with Roxana caught in between Pine and Teddy. But, in reality, Pine and Teddy have fallen for each other — and that attraction costs Teddy his life. What was your take on your character’s relationships with the other two people in that threesome?
MORRONE What I love so much about the way that David wrote this and the way that Georgi directed this is the fact that Roxana is not a love interest. She’s not swayed by men; she’s not taken off course by her love of men. She’s an incredibly practical woman. She’s a woman who’s had her guard up her whole life. She’s learned how to protect herself in a very tricky and dangerous world in which women are not normally considered equal in the field that she’s playing in. Roxana has learned how to become quite cold, and she’s been able to repress a lot of emotions and natural human desires for partnership and romanticism because she knows that she’s just not capable. I think that Teddy and Pine feel the same way. She has that line where Pine says to her, “I have a bad record with people I get close to,” and she goes, “So do I.”
CALVA Roxana said early in the season, “Teddy doesn’t like nothing — no women, no men. I tried. Be my guest, go and try.” This is a contradiction, but I think he’s someone who really found himself while being lost. I wrote a monologue with Georgi [where Teddy is telling Pine about his upbringing]. He said, “My mother was Mexican. I lived in Mexico for a while. I was raised by a priest, and I ran the moment I could.” I always imagined that the time at the monastery was not good, sexually. I don’t think that he was a kid that enjoyed being around those priests, but we don’t have to [outright] say it.
What I was imagining is that every time Teddy trusted someone, [that person] betrayed him. It could be Roxana, it could be a priest, it could be some friends, it could even be a Mexican narco. Teddy’s villa is enormous, and he has these cars and these bodyguards, but his room is just a bed and a cross. He’s not into objects. So I always thought that Teddy’s sexuality was like that; it was as empty as his heart.
What happened with this trio is that Teddy sees in Roxana something similar. That’s why he trusts her. Teddy sees in Roxana someone that uses her beautiful body, her beautiful voice, her sexuality, her magnetism — but in the end, she’s broken. And when he meets Matthew [Ellis, Pine’s alias], he realizes the same [thing]. I think when Teddy realizes that Matthew is Pine, he falls in love for real, even after the betrayal, because he’s the first person that says the truth. He’s the first person that says, “Your father doesn’t love you.” He says those words that Teddy never wanted to hear, but has been hearing in the back of his mind his whole life.
MORRONE They’re people who have been thrust into this world of survival that has kept their adrenaline and their purpose alive. But at the end of the day, they are all broken-hearted in their own way — Pine for the people he’s lost, Roxana for the loss of her father, Teddy for the life that he’s lived and the loss of his father and the lack of it.
Do you think your character ever really loved either of the two people in the trio?
MORRONE I do think that she loved both of them in the only way she knows how. It’s very hard to love someone like Teddy, knowing that, at any time, he can flip on her and then the gun is pointed at her. That doesn’t really allow you to fall totally head over heels. Roxana’s protective layer is to keep something for herself. I think she does have a lot of love, and the betrayal to Teddy in those first few episodes doesn’t come easily to her. There is pain in having to betray someone that she loves, but she also knows that, at the drop of a hat, he would take her life. So how do you live in this world where you love someone, but you also know that they will stab you? It’s very complex territory to be surviving in.
CALVA With Pine, there’s one act that Teddy does that I think is the only way we can talk about love. And it’s when Teddy puts Pine on a plane to Paris and doesn’t kill him. He’s taking so many risks there. Even [Teddy’s] lawyer is like, “We have the money. Kill him! That’s the way we do things.” But [Teddy] just can’t [do it]. He said, “Go and live your life, and please forget you ever met me.” That, in Teddy’s language, is love.
Roxana is the person who ultimately tips Roper off about Teddy’s attraction to Pine, and she is at least indirectly responsible for what happens to Teddy and Pine. Why do you think she chose to betray Pine in the last two episodes? How did you come to understand her actions in the second half of the season?
MORRONE I think Pine betrayed her by telling her he would promise her immunity from prosecution and anonymity. He effing betrayed her, and he put her in a compromising situation. He lied about being able to protect her. He cannot protect her; he doesn’t have a team behind him. She’s now divulged all this information and put herself in a compromising position where Teddy will kill her because of what she’s done, and now she’s got nowhere left to turn. He did that to her, knowing she was going out on a whim [for him]. So I think Roxana is absolutely justified in her betrayal of Pine.
Shortly after Roxana sells out Pine and Teddy, Roper tells her, “I pride myself on being an adaptable man. When circumstances demand, I shed a skin, pick up a new one. No regrets. No nostalgia for the past. Nothing is so precious that it can’t be sacrificed.” It’s a speech that continues to echo through Roxana’s head in the final moments of the finale. What is your take on the significance of that speech?
MORRONE I think she sees a lot of herself in Roper. They’re very similar, it’s almost scary. When I was trying to understand Roxana and her motivations and justify a lot of her choices, I kept looking at that quote where she says, “My father was sentimental.” [Roper] says, “And you’re not?” She says, “No, I lost that when my father died.” I think that when her father died, she broke that part of her heart. She’s quite cynical, and she doesn’t really believe in love. I think she has become a lone wolf and a survivor, and she’s been on that path for so long.
Diego, Teddy carries out all kinds of illegal activities on Roper’s behalf throughout the season. Do you think Teddy really wanted to commit all of those crimes, or did he do it solely as a way to please the man he believed was his loving father?
CALVA I think the question here is more: Did Roper create on purpose this perfect soldier, or it was just an accident? I think that’s a good question for David. But in my mind, I think [Teddy’s] something that is Roper’s creation. I mean, come on. Roper is the colonialist himself. Do you think he’s going to care at any moment [about] a Colombian guy? We are not humans [to him]. Roper is the perfect enemy because he’s a charismatic character who you can put all the bad ideas in the world [on]. But in the end, it’s not a complex character.
I talked with Hugh Laurie about it, and I was like, “Whoa, Roper’s so complex.” He was like, “No, Roper’s not complex at all. Come on. Roper is the enemy. Roper is what is wrong. There’s no complexity in that.” Roper fell in love with Pine. Pine is Roper’s [surrogate] son because Roper wants legacy. He doesn’t want a family. I was trying to imagine how Teddy ended up working with a Mexican narco, and I don’t think it was a mistake or it was something that just happened [to Teddy]. No, Roper introduced him to those people. Roper created Teddy’s career, and he forgot about him. But when he needed him, Teddy came back and saved him. Teddy just admired Roper as any kid admires his father.
David pointed out to me that Teddy ironically ends up on the same side as Pine by the end of the season, and they are two of the only people in this corrupt world who believe that the world can still be a better place. Do you think that Teddy began to wrestle more with the morality of his choices as the season progressed?
CALVA No, I don’t think that Teddy has the idea that the world could be different. We’re talking about a guy that is letting another country take over his country. That’s happening right now in the world. He’s a Mexican-Colombian guy selling his country to the British. That’s someone with no heart, with no morals, with no patriotic idea at all.
I said yes [to this role because I wanted to] play not a drug lord, but a Mexican-Colombian character who is doing this, because I think it’s really important for us not to talk about Teddy, but to talk about Roper, to talk about this colonialist part of the story that is so brutal and horrible. In my opinion, it’s actually the saddest part of the story, and we are witnesses to that happening today. [World leaders] think that they can go to other countries and do whatever they want and sell guns.
Teddy is someone [whose] heart is his weakness in the end. He loses all his control just because he just wants to be loved. I realized in my exploration with Teddy that all these criminals, these presidents — I hope that they just want to be loved because if not, they’re just animals. They just don’t have an “inner garden.” What happened with Pine and Teddy is that Pine just lights up Teddy’s inner garden. Teddy realized that he wants to go back with his sister. He wants to go back and have a life, but he knows that it’s impossible. The same way that Diego was reading the script and saying, “Teddy has to die,” Teddy knows he’s dying. He knows he’s not going to be able to kill his father.
Even early on in the show, Teddy needs to cut himself to feel pain because he’s feeling guilty. I don’t know if that talks about moral or some ethical part of the character, but [we can] just talk about trauma. All that he’s done and all that has been done to him makes a scar, and that’s human. My question is, do the [world leaders] today have scars? Because the real criminals, the real monsters like Roper, I don’t know if they have scars. That’s the question of the show.
Camila, Roxana is one of the few characters who managed to survive the bloodbath in the season two finale. Does this mean you will be back for the final season?
MORRONE I have no idea. I leave it up to the brilliant creatives to come up with what that storyline could be. There was a scene that we shot at the finale where Roper actually walks up to me at the airport, and it leaves it very open-ended. Are they going together? Are they starting their own adventure together? Are they separating paths, and she’s moving on and going back to her normal life in Miami? Can Roxana leave this life behind?
There is an addictive quality when you are playing with a lot of power and money, and you’re feeling like you’re a high-baller in this very high-stakes world. There is a part of her void that is filled by the thrill and the danger of it. I always wrote in the top of my script: She’s competitive to her own detriment, competitive to her death. Roxana is quite competitive and has something to prove. She wants to be an equal and be considered equivalent to these men; she wants to be in those rooms sitting at the head of the table. That’s where the chip on her shoulder comes from.
You’re also leading Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, Haley Z. Boston’s upcoming Netflix horror drama series, which is also Matt and Ross Duffer’s first project after the end of Stranger Things. What was the turnaround time between those two projects?
MORRONE It was basically one into the other. I wrapped Night Manager in December of 2024, and I started [Something Very Bad] on January 2nd, 2025. I am so excited for this show. There has never been anything like it on TV, I can promise you that. It is the best version of an independent horror film mixed with the grandiosity of a big-budget Netflix television show.
So much of that show’s premise is built around your character, Rachel Harkin, and Adam DiMarco’s Nicky Cunningham. How would you describe the evolution of that relationship in the first season?
MORRONE Rachel and Nicky are polar opposites. They say opposites attract, and I think the question in this case is: Do they really attract? I think Rachel is very paranoid, skeptical of the world, quite shut out from the world, an introvert. Nicky is the opposite. He’s loving and lovable and comes from a warm family and believes in love and tradition, and Rachel’s a bit of an anarchist in that way and a bit untraditional.
So you have this couple who’s on very different ends of the spectrum to start off. We are with them the five days leading up to their wedding ceremony where they’re meant to say I do, and we watch all of these very existential questions come up about partnership and soulmates and commitment. How do you know if someone’s your soulmate? What measuring scale do you use to know if somebody is the one, and when do you trust yourself? So amongst that, as you know, something bad happens. [Laughs.]
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The first two seasons of The Night Manager are now streaming on Prime Video. Read THR’s finale postmortem with star Tom Hiddleston and writer David Farr.
Read the full article here
