Creator and showrunner of the Netflix political thriller the night guard, Shawn Ryan has revealed how his personal life influenced the show.
Talk to VarietyRyan talked about never having worked in this genre and the parallels between his real life and the show.
“I have never worked in this genre. I always thought it was for movies only, and TV struggled in that space. My assessment was that it was difficult to pile the reveal and the plot twist, the reveal and the plot twist on top of each other in order to make a show.
“The solution in my mind was to dive deeper into the character. Yeah, you’re going to get all the political thriller stuff you like in the movies. But we could dig deeper into relationships like Peter and Rose’s.
“And ultimately what differentiated this story for me was that my father died very suddenly in 2015. When my brother and I went to clean his house, we found newspaper clippings that he had kept all those years of things that had happened that he had never told me about.
“I was so curious to know what the truth was with my father, and I was devastated that I could never ask him these questions and get the answers.”
“At the heart of this show, Gabriel’s character, Peter, has unanswered questions about his father and the truth. That was the real emotional hub for me that made this something beyond a political thriller.
The Night Officer is an American action-thriller television series created by Shawn Ryan based on the novel of the same name by Matthew Quirk. It premiered on Netflix on March 23, 2023.
The show follows FBI agent Peter Sutherland as he becomes embroiled in a giant conspiracy involving a Russian mole at the highest levels of the US government. Peter then begins the search for the traitor.