Two of spymaster John le Carré’s novel adaptations will be hitting the small and big screen in rapid succession. The Night Manager – in a 6-part series format helmed by Susanne Bier (Serena) and starring Tom Hiddleston (I Saw the Light) – will premiere on AMC on April 19th. Our Kind of Traitor will open in U.K. theaters on May 6th.
Directed by Susanna White (Parade’s End) from a screenplay adaptation of Carre’s novel by Hossein Amini (Snow White and the Huntsman), Our Kind of Traitor stars Ewan McGregor (Jane Got a Gun), Naomie Harris (Spectre), Stellan Skarsgård (Avengers: Age of Ultron), Damian Lewis (TV’s Billions), and Jeremy Northam (Eye in the Sky).
Check out the trailer above, which shows a couple (McGregor and Harris) meeting a fellow restaurant patron (Skarsgård), then being invited to a “small party” which winds up being quite a lavish shindig. It turns out their new acquaintance is an extremely wealthy Russian businessman who offers what looks like a flash drive and has a favor to ask: “Give this to your MI6. Tell them you have a gift from the number one money launderer from the Russian mafia.” Thus starts the couple’s inadvertent involvement with MI6 in an increasingly dangerous and high-stakes world which turns their ordinary lives upside down.
Speaking to Women and Hollywood about making the movie, director White said:
I learned that anything is possible. We shot in five countries, ranging from snow in Finland to searing heat in Morocco, and filmed as we traveled. We managed to move ourselves and our belongings from London to Paris on the Eurostar at the same time as shooting a scene. Within 24 hours we had gone from a shooting a dawn scene on a mountaintop in the Alps to a tech recce in Marrakech — I’ll never forget seeing HMI lamps swinging from below a helicopter as they were airlifted off the mountain while we headed to Marseilles to take our flight.
White will next be working with Oscar-nominated actress Jessica Chastain (Crimson Peak) on Woman Walks Ahead.
Our Kind of Traitor is expected to hit theaters in the U.S. come early June.