Gabriel Basso as Peter Sutherland in ‘The Night Agent.’ Christopher Saunders/Netflix
Netflix’s The Night Agent has Us on the edge of our seats — but how real is it?
Author Matthew Quirk, whose book The Night Agent was adapted for the small screen, shared in the latest issue of Us Weekly how he was inspired by an FBI friend.
“Every night, he would disappear at 10 o’clock for some mysterious national security job,” Quirk, 45, who was a journalist in Washington, D.C., at the time, recalled. “I imagined him sitting by a phone that would only ring in a life-or-death emergency and eventually I spun that into Peter Sutherland’s story in The Night Agent novel.”
Quirk later learned what his friend was doing. “It was similar in many ways to Peter’s job starting out, though it was even more fascinating and high stakes than I had guessed,” he shared. “Another friend’s dad was in that kind of situation — I knew him for years before I found out — and was super helpful in getting me access to the CIA and insights into real-life mole hunts that I used for the book.”
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When it comes to the concept of Night Action, Quirk called it “a real thing” — even if it’s not exactly what’s on screen.
“A network of officers work all day and night in the White House Situation Room and other watch desks around D.C., ready to field any crisis,” he continued. “As I understand it, Night Action is the code for an event so critical that they have to wake the most powerful men and women in the United States to deal with it immediately. I was fascinated by the idea — which really happens — of a young watch officer in the Situation Room having to wake the President and give the leader of the free world his or her first take on a looming crisis.”
Gabriel Basso as Peter Sutherland and Berto Colon as Solomon in ‘The Night Agent.’ Courtesy of Netflix
The Night Agent, which premiered in 2023, follows FBI agent Peter (Gabriel Basso) as he gets thrown into the middle of a vast conspiracy about a mole operating at the highest levels of the United States government. The series became the third-most-viewed debuting series on Netflix in its first four days, which scored it a renewal one week after release. Ahead of the second season premiere, Netflix renewed the action thriller for season 3.
Basso, 30, recently discussed how his commitment to the lead role resulted in him doing all of his own stunts.
“I think that can kind of get misconstrued into the world of like, I do it because I want to say I can do it, and it’s really not about that,” he said during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last month. “To me it’s about audience immersion.”
Basso wanted the audience to fully buy into his performance, adding, “I don’t want the audiences watching the show, and then right as I’m about to get hit or hip tossed or thrown onto my back, you know. I feel like it’s a lie. I enjoy acting, I don’t like lying.”
He continued: “They like Peter [and] to watch him take hits is important, I feel like. And if that requires me to get tossed into a wall, then fine. It’s not the end of the world.”
The Night Agent is currently streaming on Netflix.
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