Ex-child star Gabriel Basso gets tough in spy thriller ‘The Night Agent’

Gabriel Basso plays an FBI agent caught in hot water in his new Netflix thriller The Night Agent.

“I don’t think I’ve ever played a character like that as an adult,” Basso, 28, told The Post.

“I was really a child actor [before]. So I just had to be a kid. This was the first role as an adult that kind of put me in positions I’d never been in before – a lot of action stuff, which was cool because I love it all.”

Based on a novel by Matthew Quirk, “The Night Agent” was created by Shawn Ryan (“The Shield”) and follows Peter Sutherland (Basso), a low-level FBI agent working in the basement of the White House, an emergency number for American spies, that never rings.

When the phone mysteriously breaks its silence one night, it sends Peter into dangerous, uncharted waters and he must work to protect a civilian, Rose (Luciane Buchanan, “Sweet Tooth”), while uncovering a conspiracy , which leads to death Oval Office.

“When I originally sat down with Shawn [Ryan]he talked about how grounded he wanted to make it and how interested he was in the character versus the big plot and action, how everything was character driven,” Basso said.

“I found that unique within the genre. In action, it sometimes feels redundant. It was nice to hear that his vision for this was character based and not so much stimulus based.

“I admire Peter’s perseverance in the face of adversity and I liked that about him. Nowadays people often give up in conflict. Especially when there isn’t much incentive to keep going,” he said. “But it was nice to see someone who isn’t untouchable in fights – he’s not Superman, he gets beat up, he has to rely on others around him to a degree. But the real drive comes from within, searching for the truth, not what he’s told to believe. He just wants to know what is actually happening.”

Basso has been working since he was a child (he has appeared on episodes of iCarly and ABC’s The Middle) and has had roles in a variety of projects from Showtime’s The Big C to the comedy-drama film The Kings. of Summer to JJ Abrams’ sci-fi/adventure film Super 8.

He also played JD Vance on Hillbilly Elegy with Amy Adams and Glenn Close.

But The Night Agent marks Basso’s first starring role in a series.

“Physically, I try to stay in shape and I enjoy exercising outside of acting in real life. So the transition was seamless,” he said. “But acting – it’s been a while since I’ve worked [for pandemic-related reasons]. So I wasn’t nervous, just preparing for the amount of work. I remember watching Laura Linney on The Big C and seeing how much she had to do as #1. She always worked and was professional. So that was my biggest concern, being put in a position I hadn’t been in before – can I perform with all that extra pressure?

“I think what’s cool is now I can just move wherever I fit,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of ​​just being an action guy. I have other interests in my life: I draw; I play drums and violin. For me, creativity is much more multifaceted than “becoming an actor”. I’d get bored just being an action guy, so it’s nice to have other genres to hop in and out of. The stunt coordinator was very accommodating to me because he saw that I was just waiting to be involved in the stunts.

“He made me do a lot of things that they said other actors wouldn’t do.”