&34;I don't think I lied to anybody,&34; the &34;Loki&34; star tells EW. &34;But in a way, it was a fun game.&34; Tom Hiddleston refused to lie about costar's secret presence in The Night Manager: 'So stressful' &34;I don't think I lied to anybody,&34; the &34;Loki&34; star tells EW. &34;But in a way, it was a fun game.&34; By Wesley Stenzel :maxbytes(150000):stripicc()/WesleyStenzelauthorphoto32b61793a2784639af623f2ae091477e.jpg) Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at . He began writing for EW in 2022. EW's editorial guidelines January 30, 2026 11:30 a.m.

"I don't think I lied to anybody," the "Loki" star tells EW. "But in a way, it was a fun game."

Tom Hiddleston refused to lie about costar's secret presence in The Night Manager: 'So stressful'

"I don't think I lied to anybody," the "Loki" star tells EW. "But in a way, it was a fun game."

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

EW's editorial guidelines

January 30, 2026 11:30 a.m. ET

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Tom Hiddleston in 'The Night Manager' season 2. Credit:

Des Willie/Prime

- Tom Hiddleston intentionally refrained from lying to anyone about a major *Night Manager *spoiler.

- The *Loki *actor says that staying tight-lipped about one of his costars returning to the show was "so stressful."

- *The Night Manager* showrunner adds that he "insisted on withholding" the key characters' appearance until halfway through season 2.

**This article contains spoilers for *The Night Manager* season 2, episodes 1-3.**

Tom Hiddleston plays pretend for a living — but he refuses to be a liar.

In a conversation with ** discussing *The Night Manager* season 2, the *Life of Chuck* star says that he refused to lie to anyone about Hugh Laurie's top-secret return to the series as arms dealer Richard Roper, which was not revealed until halfway through the new season of the espionage series.

"The hardest thing actually was: I was very careful, specifically, not to lie," Hiddleston explains. "I didn't want to be in a situation where I just lied to people. So I just had to be very careful about the truth I told, and then just keep certain folds of the truth folded over, if that makes sense. I can hand-over-heart say, I don't think I lied to anybody. But in a way, it was a fun game."

Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie in 'The Night Manager' season 2.

Des Willie/Prime

Season 2 opened with Hiddleston's Jonathan Pine accompanying Olivia Colman's Angela Burr to identify Roper's (seemingly) dead body in Syria — which makes it all the more shocking when Laurie suddenly appears at the end of the third episode.

"The way our director Georgi Banks-Davies — who's as much a co-author of the whole thing as anyone — the way she's constructed it is that you hear Hugh before you see him, and that his voice sends shivers down your spine and you almost can't believe what you're hearing," Hiddleston says. "Because, like Pine, you've been carrying on under the illusion that Roper is no longer."

*Night Manager* showrunner David Farr tells EW that keeping Roper's survival a secret was of vital importance to him from the start. "I insisted on withholding," he says. "I was initially being very dramatic and gonna try and hold it for four episodes. But I think, quite rightly, I was persuaded that once you sense the smoke signals, you want to get there. And I think the halfway point turned out to be a really nice decision."

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"It's so stressful," Hiddleston says of keeping the secret, laughing. "It's stressful because he's so integral to the whole enterprise. I knew that four years ago, and Hugh and I knew that intimately about three years ago."

Farr says keeping Roper hidden would help make the villain's illegitimate Colombian son, Teddy Dos Santos (Diego Calva), into a more formidable antagonist in his own right.

"I wanted enough time for Teddy to establish himself as a character in the imagination of the audience," he explains. "And then as soon as Roper arrives, you reframe Teddy completely, so that rather than being this rather terrifying, violent man who's capable of anything, suddenly he's reframed as a son, desperate for his father's love as somewhat of a lost child, and therefore susceptible to possibly being turned by Pine, and also emotionally we begin to care for him rather than worrying about who the hell he's gonna destroy next."

Hugh Laurie in 'The Night Manager' season 2.

Des Willie/Prime

Hiddleston also believes that genuine twists can be electrifying when deployed without being spoiled. "I care very deeply about the experience of revelation in storytelling and those sorts of surprises in any narrative," he says. "Whether you're reading a book or watching a television series or watching a movie — if you watch something in this information age that we all live in and something happens and you didn't know about it, I personally find it incredibly thrilling and satisfying."

He continues, "It enriches the experience, and we all agreed that if we could pull it off, it would be, I hope, something that the audience would enjoy in some thrilling and compelling way. So I hope they did. It was definitely hard to hide the ball in the game because everyone wants to know everything. But I think we did a pretty good job."

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.***

Tom Hiddleston in New York City on Jan. 7, 2026.

Theo Wargo/Getty

Farr wasn't completely certain that the cast and crew would be able to bite their tongues long enough to let the twist shock the world when episode 3 finally arrived. "Withholding Hugh was fun, but none of us were sure we would get away with it," he says. "But I think largely, we did, which is a great tribute to the production guys and also, crucially, to Hugh for being very, very clever in the way he dealt with it all."

Hiddleston emphasizes how essential Laurie's presence is for the show. "Hugh is indivisible from *The Night Manager* for me," he says. "He's completely stitched into the fabric of what this experience has been. And so obviously, you know, he's got a very, very important role on the team, and it was like running out of the tunnel onto the pitch and pretending that you know, we don't have that position filled yet, but you're like, 'Oh my God, he's in the dressing room. He's coming out soon.'"

Season 2 of *The Night Manager* is now streaming on Prime Video. The season finale airs Sunday, Feb. 1.

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Source: Thriller

Published: January 31, 2026 at 01:57AM on Source: PRIME TIME

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