‘The Night Agent’s Gabriel Basso Explains Why He Does His Own Stunts

With The Night Agent returning for its sophomore season, fans can expect plenty more “night action” from its star.

Ahead of Season 2 of the conspiracy thriller series, which returns Jan. 23 to Netflix, star Gabriel Basso opened up about taking hits and doing his own stunts as FBI agent Peter Sutherland.

“I think that can kind of get misconstrued into the world of like, I do it because I want to say I can do it, and it’s really not about that,” he explained on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “To me it’s about audience immersion.”

Basso continued, “I don’t want the audiences watching the show, and then right as I’m about to get hit or hip tossed or thrown on my back, you know. I feel like it’s a lie. I enjoy acting, I don’t like lying. There’s just a difference.

“And for the sake of audience immersion, for the sake of believability, they like Peter [and] to watch him take hits is important, I feel like. And if that requires me to get tossed into a wall, then fine. It’s not the end of the world,” he added.

The actor also had to renew his skydiving certification after Netflix “brought it up as an idea, and then I was like, ‘Oh I already skydive. I’ll do it.’ But then insurance called and was like, ‘Yeah stop it.’”

Created by Shawn Ryan and based on the novel by Matthew Quirk, The Night Agent follows Basso’s Agent Sutherland as he’s thrown into a conspiracy around a mole at the highest levels of the United States government. Season 2 sees Peter reunite with cyber security expert Rose Larkin (Luciane Buchanan) in a race to save Manhattan from a terrorist attack.

Earlier this week, the New York premiere of Season 2 was canceled in light of the Southern California wildfires.