Hong Chau Discusses What Drew Her to The Night Agent

Hong Chau stars as Diane Farr, the President’s powerhouse Chief of Staff, in the series The Night Agent. The recently Oscar-nominated actress breaks down what drew her to the project and the most interesting details of the show.

Hong Chau has been acting since 2006, and she’s been a part of numerous TV shows through the years. With almost two decades of acting experience, Chau admitted that she’s never starred in an action thriller before, which made her experience at the set of The Night Agent extra special. The actress has worked with series creator Shawn Ryan to seamlessly portray her character on the show. To be able to do it, the actress thought that she needed to know Ryan’s motivation behind the series. She told Collider,

“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?”

Chau further added that she became interested after Ryan explained what he wanted to explore through the series. She continued,

“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.”

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Something Refreshing to Be Seen on TV

Hong Chau confessed that she loved their little world in the series. It excites her that she got to traverse into the world where she can navigate different things. She explained,

“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.”

What makes it more interesting for the actress is the fact that some of the happenings on the series also happen in real life. She concluded,

“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.”

The full season 1 of The Night Agent was released on Netflix last March 23, 2023. The series has been renewed for a second season.