How do you make the so-called “worst man in the world” charming? Giving him a British accent — and casting Hugh Laurie doesn’t hurt.
On AMC’s spy thriller “The Night Manager,” (Tuesdays at 10 p.m.) Laurie takes the misanthropy of his “House” character to another level as the villainous Richard Roper, who makes millions in the illegal arms trade.
Through three episodes, we’ve seen him plot and scheme against the backdrop of his sumptuous Mallorca compound, all while playing loving father to his young son and faithful partner to his American girlfriend, Jed (Elizabeth Debicki). He’s no psychopath, but he’s no less evil for it.
“Roper is deadly because he is completely in control of himself and aware of the world around him,” Laurie, 56, tells The Post. “He just happens to have made a moral choice to live the way he lives, [to] exploit weakness wherever he finds it with absolute ruthlessness.
“It’s because he’s not damaged that makes him so damaging.”
While Laurie originally wanted to play “The Night Manager”s protagonist, spy Jonathan Pine, after first reading John Le Carre’s novel in 1993, that role went to 35-year-old Tom Hiddleston. He admits he felt the same fatherly pride toward the younger actor that his character feels for Pine.
“I had a very slight feeling of envy,” Laurie says. “The older man feeling that his position inevitably will be taken away by the ravages of time and feeling himself challenged by the young stud is an ingredient in the story. It was right in a way that I would get to look across at Tom and go, ‘Dammit, he’s so bloody dashing. How irritating.’”
‘It was right in a way that I would get to look across at Tom and go, “Dammit, he’s so bloody dashing. How irritating.”‘
- Hugh Laurie on working alongside Tom Hiddleston
After Pine saves Roper’s son in a set-up, he infiltrates the inner circle where he’s groomed as his new No. 2 — despite the loud protestations of Lance Corkoran (Tom Hollander). In Episode 4, airing Tuesday, Roper fully brings Pine into the operation by making him head of his decoy agricultural firm — bringing the spy ever closer to his intelligence-operative boss Angela Burr’s (Olivia Coleman) goal of taking down the villain.
“I do believe there’s some element in Roper that knows [Pine’s identity] all along and [that] Roper is actually seeking his own destruction,” Laurie ventures. “That he knows he’s a damned soul and he wants to choose the assassin.”
While the two will have to resolve their cat-and-mouse game by the end of six episodes (Laurie says a second season is a possibility), the actor’s path on his other TV job, HBO’s “Veep,” is less clear.
After joining the political comedy as Selina Meyer’s (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) charismatic running mate Tom James last year, in Season 5 Madam President has so far relegated him to the sidelines.
“He does try to maneuver his way back into a position of power because for all his … easygoing ‘I exist to serve’ mantra, he’s obviously a deeply ambitious and ruthless character himself,” Laurie says.
While he will be in eight episodes this season, he is hesitant to tease any more of Tom’s story. “I can only say he’s not out of the game,” he says.