The Six Things That Stunned James Norton and 'Rogue Agent's' Creators

Rogue Agent is the gripping new thriller about convicted British con man, Robert Freegard.

The movie focuses on the doomed romance between Freegard and a hot-shot lawyer, Alice Archer, which quickly becomes a game of cat and mouse when Alice learns who Freegard really is.

The character of Alice, played by Gemma Arterton, is not a real person but is inspired by the American lawyer and the women who came together to bring him down in 2002.

The real Freegard was captured after months of surveillance aided by the parents of his American girlfriend Kim Adams, who worked with the FBI and Scotland Yard to secure his arrest at Heathrow Airport in the U.K.

Rogue Agent is based on Michael Bronner's article, "Chasing Agent Freegard" who went on to co-write the screenplay with directors Adam Patterson and Declan Lawn.
McMafia's James Norton, who portrays Freegard, also served as a producer on the series.

Norton, Lawn, Patterson, and Bronner told Newsweek all about working on Rogue Agent and the things that shocked, stunned and surprised them the most in the process, some of which are true facts we do not get to see on screen.

The 6 Things That Stunned James Norton and Rogue Agent's Creators

1. Playing Robert Freegard

Speaking to Newsweek about taking on the role of Freegard, Norton described it as a "bizarre and compelling mission."

He shared: "The role for me is so compelling, it's so mysterious and I've never seen or met anyone like him.

"There's never been a case where someone has been convicted for kidnapping by fraud. It just seems bizarre that this man kidnapped people for 10 years without ever constraining them, and doing it all through fear and manipulation. It was just such a sort of bizarre and compelling mission."

Norton added there were "so many shocking moments along the journey of working him out and learning about him in such detail."

He shared: "We had to leave a lot of it out. And then there was a lot we weren't able to include in the movie partly just because of time, and partly because of plausibility."

2. The Character of John

The character of John in Rogue Agent is loosely based on the real-life experiences of a young male student and two female students who crossed paths with Freegard in the 1990s.

Posing as a friendly bar man, Freegard was able to convince three Harper Adams Agricultural College students that he was an MI5 undercover agent investigating an IRA cell at the institution.

After gaining their trust, he convinced the trio his cover had been blown and, as a result, their lives and their families were at risk at the hands of the IRA. He managed to drain them of all of their money under the guise of protection.

As seen in Rogue Agent, John was one of the first to see through Freegard's lies, but one of the women stayed with him for a few more years and another was with him for 10, with her ordeal coming to an end with Freegard's arrest in 2002.

Rogue Agent gives more attention to the stories of Mae and Sophie, but Norton shared what happened to the real John was also disturbing, but unfortunately could not be included in the final cut.

Norton said, "Freegard beat [John, the character, the young male student, we were protecting their name legally] up in order to train him up as a spy. He said, 'If you're going to be a spy, you need to learn how to take a beating'. And so this man, he takes him to the cellar of the pub and just beat him to a pulp. This poor student. Those moments.… It's just so dark and so irredeemable."

3. Robert Freegard Had Children With One of His Victims

In Rogue Agent, Alice Archer visits the home of Mae, where it is revealed that Freegard was the father of her two children.

The woman that Mae is based on had an eight-year relationship with Freegard and share two daughters, which was also a shocking piece of the puzzle to learn, Norton told Newsweek.

4. The Number of Victims

The sheer scale of Freegard's crimes and the number of victims out there is also something that stunned Norton, Bronner, Patterson and Lawn.

Today, Freegard is a free man, and, as seen in the title card at the end of Rogue Agent, he is believed to have many more victims, and allegations of fraud and deception have come to light (see Netflix's The Puppet Master).

He was released from prison in 2009. His original two life sentences for kidnap by fraud were revoked by the Court of Appeal, which ruled Freegard's victims had not been physically held against their will.

Norton reflected: "We don't even know how many victims there are and how many he raped and how far his viciousness extended so there were multiple times of complete shock [when researching]."

He added: "His sentence was thrown out, and knowing what we know, and having a sense of who he was, I think that's obviously a travesty. I'm deeply saddened that someone of that nature is able to be out in the world and continues to cause such harm and in such an insidious way, because, he's always on just on the right side of the law. He's not going out beating people up. Well, he is, but he's not, overtly breaking the law. So he's able to get away with it, and yet the pain he has caused that we know about is horrific to witness. It's the sad fact that he's still out there and, you know, like a lot of these shows about con men. I hope [Rogue Agent] makes their life a little less peaceful."

Lawn added: "Sometimes you hear something and you just have this compulsion to understand it. And Adam [Patterson] and I were kind of hooked from the outset when we got onto it. We wanted to know more and more, and we want to know how he managed to do these things.

"One of the things that really interested us, the people that he fooled, were not idiots. They were intelligent, self-aware, clever people."

5. Robert Freegard May Have Reached Out to Filmmakers

Speaking to Newsweek, Norton shared that while working on the movie, he and the team behind Rogue Agent received some interesting phone calls, which they "have reason to believe" could have been Freegard himself.

Norton shared: "We also wondered whether he had reached out to us. We had a couple of phone calls from some dubious characters who claimed to have known him. Rob Taylor [Rogue Agent producer] put the phone down afterward and was thinking if you're a narcissist of Freegard's nature and you're trying to ingratiate yourself with a movie about you, you're surely going to try and reach out to the producers and weed your way in. So we have reason to believe that perhaps he had reached out at some point, and that was quite creepy."

6. The Real Alice Archer

The character of Alice Archer is based on the real female lawyer who helped bring Freegard to justice.

Bronner shared that speaking with her was like "being in a washing machine going 100 miles an hour."

He reflected: "The woman that inspired Alice archers character was, for me the most fascinating because she was so smart. So it was hardest to imagine that she would fall into this but then she had this weakness, and she had this need for a thrill and she saw it as a challenge. And I think he saw it as a challenge, and it really was a cat and mouse. And I think Adam [Patterson] and Declan [Lawn] homed in on that perfectly.

"She kind of fought, in the end, the fight for all of them [victims]. She told me straight up, 'It was hard for me because I was deeply involved with him. But I was gonna f****** nail him.' It's those two things that she went back and forth, and back and forth. She'd make gains into investigating him, and then she'd fall back sleeping with him—and then bounce back the other way. She described it as like being in a washing machine going 100 miles an hour; and just to sit and talk with her is like being in a washing machine going 100 miles an hour. "

Rogue Agent is in theaters now and is available to stream on AMC+ and Netflix U.K.