Idris Elba talks portraying Sam Nelson in season 2 of ‘Hijack’

More episodes of Hijack season 2 are now streaming on Apple TV, with Idris Elba returning as professional negotiator Sam Nelson. After surviving a plane hijacking in season 1, Sam ends the season 2 premiere with a plot twist no one saw coming: He is now the mastermind behind the takeover of a subway station in Berlin.

In order to portray this role reversal, Elba said he spoke with the creative team about why the series should return and how Sam had changed since the first season. “[We talked] about why are we coming back and what do we want to see and what would he have had to have gone through to get to the season,” he explained in a recent press conference. “Once we had gotten that, there was a lot of discussion around sort of physically what he might look like.”

To bring that to life, Elba said he explored trauma and its aftermath, especially how men process extreme experiences, adding he was mindful of the unexplored “residue effects” that were left over from season 1.

The result is a version of Sam who shows moments of vulnerability throughout the new season.

Though the stakes have flipped, Elba said his character remains compelling because of his humanity. “He isn’t built to be like the gun-twirling kung fu master guy,” he explained. “He’s sort of using a very cerebral approach, he is thinking on his toes and he has a lot of courage.”

Audiences, he said, “don’t mind seeing someone just rumble and bumble their way through, making sense as they go along.”

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