The Night Manager's Tom Hollander and co-star Niamh Algar take us inside your next TV adventure

Hence when Neil Cross, award-winning screenwriter and the man behind Luther, originally envisaged him starring in his new thriller The Iris Affair, it was more as a behind-the-desk mastermind than a fist-swinging, tweed-coat-donning anti-hero. More a fraught middleman. In a cardie.

However, what the 58-year-old Hollander does find himself in is a semi-James Bond, semi-Severance eight-part hi-tech escapade around Italy and Slovakia. It’s great fun in a witty British way. Hollander plays Cameron Beck, a maverick genius whose job it is to unlock the secrets contained in a giant computer and save the world. To do this, he enlists the help of Iris (Niamh Algar), a brainy Lara Croft type who loves unlocking codes and cracking puzzles. She’s also pretty handy with her fists, guns and syringes and at one point emerges from the waves like a modern-day Ursula Andress.

Iris has all the fun. Whereas Hollander? He uses middle-class phrases such as “swapsies” and “thinking cap” and spends a lot of time drinking whisky.

We meet on set during the shoot at the legendary Cinecitta Studios in Rome. “Cameron Beck is someone who is an enthusiast for brilliant people,” Hollander explains. “He’s financed the building of this brilliant computer, and he loves games. Now he needs to find someone to break a code that will solve all his problems.” Because if Beck doesn’t unlock the computer with the help of Iris, he will be killed.

Hence all the car chases and derring-do? “Yes, there is a very long car chase, interspersed with some very clever philosophical speculation. But I don’t do very much of the former. Although we did go up in a helicopter the other day… It’s a bit like a live action Wacky Races with a bit of intellectual texture to it, and with Niamh as Penelope Pitstop,” he continues, referring to the classic 1970s Hanna-Barbera cartoon series. Does that make him the evil mastermind Dick Dastardly? “For bits of it. At other times I’m Muttley.” [Dastardly’s canine sidekick who takes all the blame].

Casting directors seem to like sending Hollander off to work in Italy, I say, referring to his role as Quentin, the lavish gay Brit who seeks to trap, and murder Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya McQuoid in the second season of The White Lotus. “Yes, it’s a nice feeling to be back in Italy again,” he says. “There is a lot of pasta. Which is offered and mostly rejected because of the need to stay in shape. Even though I notice Italians are in very good shape, despite the fact they have cake for breakfast and pasta for lunch.”

“In many ways, Tom’s got the qualities of an old-style Hollywood leading man,” explains Neil Cross, who says he watches a minimum of eight classic movies every weekend in order to keep his eye on what makes a good story and a great script. “He can get inside the material and deliver elaborate dialogue – which, if it was delivered by a less able actor could spill over into camp. Cameron Beck has to be capable of charm and ferocious intelligence.

“In Cameron and Iris, I wanted people who were massively attracted to how the other thinks. It’s the primary driver behind most of Hitchcock’s thrillers, but also old-fashioned comedies like It Happened One Night or Bringing Up Baby. Films with scripts that are quick, and witty. And both Tom and Niamh can do that.

“My primary intention was to make a TV show without being arch, and without being post-modern – something refreshingly old-fashioned. I wanted to apply the kind of storytelling that was used by directors who were unfashionable by 1973. I also wanted the show to look unapologetically, unironically glamorous. When I was pitching it to Sky, I said Iris must never drive a car with a roof, like Grace Kelly. And the sky is always blue, and the mountains are beautiful, and she needs to be beautiful.”

Iris may be beautiful but she also has to be able to get dusty, fight in the street, leap on and off motorbikes and push cars over cliffs. “I had to learn how to ride a Vespa and one of those little Italian three-wheelers,” says Niamh Algar. “And a Ferrari! I’m also about to film a huge fight sequence, which is going to be gruesome…”

The grittier the better for Algar, it seems. “I started boxing years ago. It has come in handy, because if you’re taking hits and punching people, you need to be able to work seamlessly with the stunt team.”

Amongst the car chases and fight scenes is there actually an Iris ‘affair’? “Iris is infatuated by Cameron, his mind and drive,” says Niamh. “But also, these two are constantly trying to kill one another!”

That sounds like a nicely deflected no… But how was it working with Hollander? “I’m such a huge fan! Any time you see his name on the credits, you think, OK, this guy is about to steal the scene. There’s this emotional depth he brings to the character, which is fascinating because that changes as you play the character. Particularly with TV because you don’t get much rehearsal time. And Terry doesn’t like to over-rehearse.”

Terry is the director Terry McDonough, whose CV includes Breaking Bad and its prequel Better Call Saul. Like those two series, this show makes you root for the baddies, the script is clever, it keeps you on your toes and saves the story from being gratuitously drowned in violence.

Hollander is as carefully nuanced as was his star turn in The White Lotus. Is he a baddie? Is he a goodie? Cameron Beck seems very cunning, and you fear for the vulnerable people in his command. But then all of a sudden, he stops talking about cutting people’s limbs off and comes out with a homely British phrase like “Blimey”. The overall effect is to make you feel comforted and reassured, as if he’s going to offer you Marmite on toast and a cup of tea.

This acting see-saw is Hollander’s special skill. “Yes, I’ve done a few of those roles where the audience thinks: ‘Oh, he’s quite nice! Oh no, he’s a villain!’” Take his role in The White Lotus – spoiler alert – “We didn’t know that Quentin was necessarily going to kill Tanya,” he says, “but the game was ‘Is he? Isn’t he? Is he? Isn’t he?’”

Why does he think he’s cast in such roles? “Because if you do it, and do it reasonably well, then you get asked again.”

Dick Dastardly or Muttley? Heartless provocateur or cosy delight? Tom Hollander has a fabulous ability to deploy both.

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The Iris Affair begins on Sky and NOW on 16th October 2025.

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