SPOILER ALERT:The story includes details about Season 2 of theNetflixseriesThe Recruit.
Lester protested to Dawns mission but didnt stop her.
Owen instead tried to help Jang Kyun get his kidnapped wife back, which took them to Russia.
Noah Centineo as Owen Hendricks in ‘The Recruit’Netflix
Hawley discusses the finale and what may be next for chaos agent Owen, coming off his first win.
(For Deadlines interview with Centineo, clickhere.)
HAWLEY: We did a little.
L to R: Noah Centineo as Owen Hendricks, Maddie Hasson as Nichika Lashin in ‘The Recruit’ Season 2Netflix
There was definitely some navigating to do but Im super happy with how the six episodes came out.
DEADLINE:Were there storylines you had to cut to make it a six-episode season?
DEADLINE:Nichkas backstory was one of the elements that we didnt see in Season 2.
The husband was abusive.
The story that the world thought was that he had been killed by a rival Russian mobster.
Max used that to make it take that guy out and take his territories.
Nichka ultimately learned the truth, and thats why she wanted to kill her mom.
Sadly, that backstory fell away as we were doing the season.
HAWLEY: Im not done with Nichka.
I love Maddie, I think shes great.
I dont know where it goes yet in my head but I never want to say never.
DEADLINE: Lets talk about Dawn.
And then in the end, she got into that fight with Nichka who killed her.
HAWLEY: Dawn is a complicated character.
So I think shes just desperately trying to keep her head above water.
So she hatches this plan, which is obviously a Hail Mary.
He clearly owed her, they had feelings, not romantic, but they went back.
I think ultimately, Dawn is just another survivor who ultimately cant get out of her own way.
Theres a lot of complications, which will be brought in to Season 3, hopefully.
The question is, what is the agencys opinion going to be of him?
DEADLINE:What about Owen and the agency?
He doesnt know of CIAs plan to pin every transgression on him.
Is he going back to another mess?
He doesnt know any of that in the moment.
I love how complicated that last beat is, and Noah is so good.
Theres all this potential stuff that hes realizing, which I think is great.
Talk about him descending into darkness a bit.
HAWLEY: It was really important to me in Season 1 that we didnt round the edges off.
Noah is such an inherently charming actor, and you want to root for him.
And Im not really thinking about the impact of that on them.
In Season 2, he is trying to grow up.
He does try and go through official channels early with Lester rather than winging it.
The moment with Hannah really is closing the door.
But I do think that he was not lying when he said I was trying to be better.
Its just happened to him.
Say yes and get away with it.
HAWLEY: Youre right.
Youre right, he got attacked, sorry about that.
But again, people got hurt while he was saving that story, so, there are still consequences.
Was there any influence there?
And so what felt important to me was Owen getting caught up in the nobility of this quest.
DEADLINE:Will they defect?
Will we ever see them again,Jang Kyun and his wife?
HAWLEY: I would like to see them again down the road.
And so I liked that Owen again, as the chaos agent, just keeps…
DEADLINE:There are a lot of fun moments in season 2, many courtesy of Janus.
HAWLEY: Janus is such a fun character.
And he does such a good job with it.
If you talk about her again, Ill push you in front of a train.
I wasnt going to lean in as much in the early days in the writing.
DEADLINE:Would Grace come visit Janus as he invited her to continue this unexpected romance?
HAWLEY: I dont know.
Where is Owen starting Season 3 when hes been through this much stuff, romantically, Im not sure.
Does he still live with roommates?
DEADLINE:I got worried at the end about Yoo Jin, Owens romantic interest in Season 2.
Did she survive?And does she and Owen have a future together?
HAWLEY: They all did.
Everybodys down below on the submarine, everybody was taken on board the submarine in the rescue mission.
Again, I didnt have space to to do that.
But yes, it was a happy ending, they all got off the boat and everything.
Going forward, well see.
But then, is there a long term relationship there?
Im not sure yet.
Or does he look out for her and then they go their own ways?
Its too early days for me on that.
DEADLINE:By the way, that submarine appeared out of nowhere.
Did somebody call for it or did it just happen to be in the neighborhood?
So that was really special to do.
And we also actually shot inside the CIA.
That was a really special experience to get, besides shooting in Korea, which was also fun.
DEADLINE:Was this your first time filming in Korea?
HAWLEY: It was a really incredible experience, the crews there were really great.
Every department had at least one person who was bilingual.
We had a Korean first AD alongside our Vancouver first AD.
We had a stunt coordinator from Vancouver and one from Korea.
It was really great to meld those two filmmaking worlds and make the show.
DEADLINE:James Purefoy is one of the biggest names to join the show so far.
Talk about adding the character of Rome and getting James to play him.
Would Rome be somebody, as you mentioned, that Owen could rely on in future seasons?
Hes based on a real guy.
There are these international fixers who exist in the world.
And so thats who Jamess character is inspired by.
HAWLEY: Yeah, that was a fun phone call to make Season 1 to Nathan.
Im like, can you come play a CIA director for couple episodes?
We can fit all your work in one day and get you up here.
He had a great time, he was like, I get to curse!
Because Nathan is really a connection television star.
DEADLINE:Have you spoken with Anderson Cooper?
Is he aware of your show?
Would he appear on it?
HAWLEY(laughs): I havent spoken with Anderson Cooper.
I did an interview with Jake Tapper, who is Anderson adjacent.
I dont know if you saw it, but there was a Halloween episode where the doorbell rings.
Its Jake Tapper and his real son trick or treating, which was a fun little thing.
DEADLINE:Have you started breaking down stories for a potential third season?
And is there a dream destination to go to internationally should you keep that as part of the show?
HAWLEY: Were waiting for Netflix to officially do their thing with it.
I have been thinking about it, in broad strokes.
It would be definitely nice [to film abroad].
Im not sure exactly where I want to go yet.
I feel like weve done Russia, weve done Korea.
So maybe Latin America, Africa would be exciting.
DEADLINE:So youre not in the writers room working on Season 3 yet?
HAWLEY: No, not yet.
How did that come about and is it me or are they getting longer and more complicated?
HAWLEY: Whats funny is, every title is a line from the show.
I never remember what they are, either.
Theyre meant to be a bit thematic but also just if its a funny line.
Im not trying to make it more complicated, sometimes it just has a lot of letters.
DEADLINE:You mentioned funny lines.
I feel like the second season had even more of those than the first.
Will that strong comedic bent continue?
HAWLEY: Yeah, no, definitely.
Look, I like telling story that way.
I like it to be everything tonally.
There was significant improvement in Season 2.
HAWLEY: I appreciate that.
We tried but we should have had somebody in the way that we did Season 2 with Korea.
We should have worked a little harder on that.
And Laura, to her credit, shed never played a character that was like that before.
