The fictional prime minister in The Diplomat, the Netflix show, has resigned midway through the fourth series because Britain having the same leader for four years was deemed too unrealistic.
Nicol Trowbridge, played by Rory Kinnear, was forced to step down from his premiership in the latest season of the drama to make the plot more reflective of the tumult that is British politics. He has been replaced by Bethan Vaughn, played by Jodie Whittaker.
Explaining the decision to write Kinnear's character out, Debora Cahn, the producer, said she wanted the plot to reflect reality.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"By the time we got to this season, Rory had been prime minister for a period of time where the actual UK had five different people at 10 Downing Street," she told The Hollywood Reporter.
Kinnear, also known for playing Bill Tanner, MI6's chief of staff in the James Bond franchise, added: "I got a heads up from Deb that at some point during the series, Trowbridge will be resigning, and I've already felt pretty lucky to have stayed on for as long as I have, given the nature of British politics over the last six or seven years."
Jodie Whitaker's Bethan Vaughn succeeds Kinnear's Nicol Trowbridge in The Diplomat to better reflect the transience of British politics
The popular series, which premiered in April 2023 but began filming a year earlier, has weathered four changes of prime minister, from Boris Johnson in 2022 to Andy Burnham in 2026.
Ms Cahn said: "It felt like there was this essential part of being a diplomat, which is that you're always learning the cast of characters from scratch.
AdvertisementAdvertisement"You either outlast the people that you're working with, or you're sent to a different country.
"And I wanted to see our team going through the struggle of just when you think you know where the ground is under your feet, it completely changes. You've built all these relationships, and suddenly you have nothing."
In the show, Kinnear's character resigns after Kate Wyler, the US ambassador played by Keri Russell, blackmails him.
The flailing Trowbridge hallucinates about his late confidante, Margaret Roylin, and ultimately decides he can no longer keep his role because of how "compromised he would be" in future.
'Events catch up with people'
Asked how much he felt the blackmail incident threatened Trowbridge's position, Kinnear said: "I do think that most politicians have a sort of self-awareness about how they can present themselves or how they can operate and what constitutes a line in the sand for something they wouldn't be able to go on with.
AdvertisementAdvertisement"And I think knowing how compromised he would be, particularly in his relationship with America, and how complicated he had been with that, with this new information in their hands, I think he knew: 'There's nothing I can do without feeling I'll be limping on'."
The actor continued: "I also think events catch up with people… and sometimes people's appetite goes for the hurly burly of politics, and I think everyone knows that you're a long time retired and resigned once you leave it, so you keep on going.
"[You] keep on going because there's nothing quite like it in terms of the status that you're afforded, in terms of the decisions you get to make, in terms of just the day-to-day excitement of it, but when it's time to step away, it must be sort of crashingly obvious, and I think that's why he leaps to resignation."
Mr Johnson resigned in September 2022 after a succession of scandals – including Partygate during Covid – prompted a mass ministerial revolt.
AdvertisementAdvertisementHis successor, Liz Truss, who was only in the role for 45 days, left after a disastrous mini-Budget that triggered a significant downturn in the markets and a loss of confidence in her premiership from her fellow Tory MPs.
Rishi Sunak then became prime minister and Conservative leader for the next two years until the party suffered a landslide defeat by Labour in the 2024 general election, which ended 14 years of Tory government.
After taking the helm, Sir Keir Starmer bowed out of his premiership after only two years as a result of Labour infighting, missteps and his own lack of leadership.
In his first speech in the top job in July, Mr Burnham vowed to make his premiership "a circuit breaker for Britain", and said the fact that he was the seventh PM in a decade showed that the political class needed to "raise our game".
