SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for The Night Agent Season 3.

Louis Herthum is deliciously villainous in The Night Agent Season 3, as his character Jacob Monroe—also known as The Broker—returns to try and entrap Peter Sutherland even further. Monroe is definitely the kind of character viewers love to hate. But in the third season, there’s a new layer to the character, and it’s poignantly personal.

Early in the season, Peter realizes that Monroe is battling cancer, just like Peter’s mother. The character feels more human than ever before, as viewers have to see him on a vulnerable level. And that’s not just a neat plot idea—it’s something very important for Louis, as the actor explained in his TVBrittanyF.com interview.

Brittany Frederick: Coming back for a second season, was there any aspect of Jacob Monroe that you were particularly excited to explore further?

Louis Herthum: This guy is very different from anyone I’ve ever played. He’s by far the smartest person I’ve ever played. I don’t always play these $12,000 suit-wearing guys, summa cum laude from Harvard and this kind of stuff, and that’s who this guy was… He’s such an enigma that I constantly was rethinking things. So by the time we got to Season 3, I pretty much knew who he was.

But there’s tons of surprises in Season 3. There were surprises for me, not only as an actor for my character, [but] for just the show itself. I think by far, it’s the best season yet. The storylines are terrific. They’re really interesting. I think Stephen Moyer’s storyline is just fascinating as hell. Reading scripts, I wasn’t really looking much for my stuff. I get to Stephen’s; I want to see what’s going on with that whole storyline.

Monroe is an unquestionably terrible guy. But you also played a very terrible human as Sheriff Wayne McCarthy, the antagonist in All Rise Season 2. How does Monroe compare to McCarthy?

[McCarthy] was just blatantly horrible. But on the scale of things, the whole scope of what these two guys did, Jacob’s got him. Jacob really tries to run under the radar, and he doesn’t put out there everything that he does. He doesn’t wear it on his sleeve, that’s for sure. And McCarthy pretty much wore his horribleness on his sleeve.

But when you’re playing someone who is so much of a villain, what do you find to connect with? What was there in your Night Agent role that worked for you?

When I first got the job and I was speaking with [The Night Agent executive producer/showrunner] Shawn Ryan about the character, he said no matter how good or bad a character is that I write, I always like to give them some kind of humanity… That was actually quite helpful. And it was also in the script. In Season 2, you could see that I had some sympathy and empathy for my right-hand man, played by Berto [Colon]. Solomon was the character’s name, and I had sympathy for his sister.

One of my favorite scenes of Season 2 was when I meet him out on the road. He stops to help me—a complete stranger—and stays there until the tow truck leaves. Jacob spots this loyalty in this person that he doesn’t know from Adam. Jacob can find out anything, so he spies the the license plate, and then he gets in touch with him. He finds out the perpetrator of the hit and run that put his sister in a wheelchair, and he leaves the information for him on his vehicle. And then from there, they end up working together.

I’m sure [that] Jacob felt sure that even letting him know who this person was, that hit his sister and took off, was probably going to end up at the end of his baseball bat. So he’s doing something which may lead to a bad end for somebody, but for the other person in their own way, he did something good for him. He’s a complicated character. He’s definitely one of the most complicated characters I’ve ever played, maybe other than doing that scene with Anthony Hopkins in Westworld. But as far as the whole arc of a character, he’s by far the the most complicated and keeps me on my toes.

The Night Agent is a show with an incredible wealth of talent, whether it’s Shawn behind the camera or folks like Gabriel Basso and, as you said, Stephen Moyer in front of it. How would you describe the filming experience?

I’ve been blessed to work on a lot of shows with mad talent. Westworld is a great example; look at the Oscar winners and Oscar nominees on that show, and Oscar nominees. With this show, the producers and the writers were very present—always on set, always there to answer questions. That includes the the first ADs. This show is a real collaboration between the cast and the production. Westworld is one of the most extraordinary experiences of my career, but [The Night Agent] had that same sort of feeling.

Sometimes you do a show and you have this relationship with the cast. You talk to the director while you’re working, but you don’t talk to him afterwards. You don’t talk too much with the producers. This was a situation where they were always available. It was a meshing of the cast and the producers and the crew, and that made it a much more rewarding situation, because you just always felt safe. There were no stupid questions. I had questions about this guy, but you never felt like you’re asking a stupid question. It was really wonderful to have that arc of talent you’re talking about there around you at all times.

The Night Agent Season 3 is particularly meaningful for you, because Jacob Monroe’s storyline is based in your reality. What was that like for you, obviously a personal challenge, but then to meld it with your professional work?

A couple of months before we were to start production, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer… so I had to let Shawn know. I was diagnosed in December, and right after the holidays, Shawn and I spoke… I said bad news, buddy, I’ve got cancer, and I’m going to have to go through chemo. My appearance is going to be very different in Season 3 than it was in Season 2, because I’m going to lose my hair. My beard will probably fall out. I’ve lost 20 pounds already, and probably will lose more.

I was absolutely petrified that I would be replaced. That’s what I think a lot of people in Hollywood would have done—we’re so sorry, Louis, but you understand we’ve got to serve the show and we’re going to have to replace you. The very first words out of [Shawn’s] mouth were Lou, I’m so sorry to hear that, but you need to know that your health is is paramount, and that is the very first thing that matters. But if there’s a way we can make this work, I’d love to make that happen.

I said, if you’re game, I’m game. And so we talked a little bit about different things, and I was going to bring this up—but he brought it up before I did. He said, Lou, your privacy is very important to you, and it’s important to us that we don’t violate your privacy. But would you be amenable to us writing it in? I went, man, I’m so glad you asked, because that’s the only way it’s going to work, because of my appearance. So right then and there, he said, we’re going to do that.

Shawn and Paul Bernard and Marney Hochman and the producers and the cast and the ADs, I can’t even tell you the extent that they went to to make it possible for me to do this and to make it comfortable for me to do this. I was in chemo treatment during the shooting, and I was traveling from Baton Rouge, my hometown, back and forth to New York. And I’m indebted to them. Shawn is just the most amazing human being. He really is. It’s just not something you expect, to be honest with you, in our industry.

I went through the treatment. I recovered quite fast. I gained weight during the show. And so Monroe has a completely different look in Season 3. But the ironic thing is writing that into the script, added on to the surprises that were already in the script. [It] just made them so much more powerful. It was just sort of serendipitous.

I got through the season. It was the toughest thing I’ve ever done, but having that job, having all the dialogue to learn and and having something to focus on, helped in my recovery. There’s no question about it. So thank you, Shawn and company, for what you did for me.

For more information and resources about prostate cancer, visit the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

The Night Agent is now streaming on Netflix. Photo Credit: Featured image by Netflix, headshot by Max Aria/Courtesy of E2W Collective.

Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.