Three-time Emmy winner Ted Danson and creator Mike Schur sit down with CNN Chile to unpack the Chilean roots of “A Man on the Inside”, the impact of “The Mole Agent” and the evolution of the series' plot in its recently premiered second season.
Ted Danson is one of the most established names in American television, with a career that includes Cheers, Becker, CSI and The Good Place, as well as three Emmy and two Golden Globe wins.
The series, created by Michael Schur, follows retired engineering professor Charles Nieuwendyk, who gets a new lease on life when he’s recruited to go undercover as an investigator.
But what’s less visible on screen, yet central to the show’s identity, is the Chilean documentary that inspired it: The Mole Agent.
In an exclusive talk with CNN Chile, both Ted Danson and creator Mike Schur explained how Maite Alberdi’s work became the model and “North Star” for the series and how that influence continues into its recently premiered second season.
Released in 2020, The Mole Agent follows Sergio Chamy, a widower in his eighties who is hired by a private investigator to infiltrate himself into a care home located in El Monte, Chile. Then, report to him on an alleged mistreatment of a resident.
The film premiered at Sundance and was later nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 93rd Academy Award.
For Schur, who is known for The Office, Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Good Place, the impact of Alberdi’s film was immediate. And when asked whether he remembered the first time he saw the film, his memory was quite precise.
“It was like, ‘Oh, my god, this is amazing. I love this so much. I want this man to be my actual grandfather.’ I loved the story. I loved the themes. I loved what it had to say about aging and about community and about friendship (…). I did not immediately think, like, ‘Oh, I should make this into a TV show.’ It was when my producing partner, Morgan Sackett, sent me an email and said, ‘Have you seen this? We should make this into a show and Ted should play the main part.’ Then I watched it again, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, what a great idea.’”
He adds, “I remember it clear. I remember watching it and laughing and loving it and crying and enjoying it so thoroughly.”
Then, both Sackett and Schur sent The Mole Agent to Danson, whose reaction was “the same” as his colleagues (the three of them had already crossed professional paths while filming The Good Place, which aired from 2016 to 2020.)
“First off, I wanted to work with them no matter what,” Danson recalls.
“But then, when I saw that it was like this… What a present in life for an actor to be able to play someone, you know, Sergio’s age or my age and have that character be the leading man taking you through a film is extraordinary. You don’t usually get that opportunity.”
For him, that gift is directly linked to the themes that Alberdi’s documentary and the series address.
“To do it, I think it was possible because you were talking about something so important… About aging and about how we treat people, and we need to encourage people to keep living until they don’t, you know? As opposed to that kind of, ‘Oh, I’m getting old, I need to fade into the background.’”
The first season of A Man on the Inside premiered on Netflix on 2024, November 21st, with eight episodes released globally.
Schur emphasized that it contains small, deliberate nods to its Chilean origin and “a lot of little references” to The Mole Agent‘s original settings.
For example, he says, “The show takes place in San Francisco because San Francisco was the name of the home in the documentary, and there are little Easter eggs that we’ve laid in.”
The series has already collected major recognition: it was named one of the AFI Awards 2024 TV Programs of the Year, and Ted Danson received 2025 Golden Globe and 2025 Screen Actors Guild nominations for his performance.
And now the second season, also eight episodes long, comes along almost a year after its debut.
This new era moves Charles from the retirement community to Wheeler College, a small liberal arts campus where he goes undercover as a professor to help investigate a case involving a stolen laptop and a large donation.
Several central characters from the first season return, and the series also adds new ones. Among them, a music professor played by Mary Steenburgen, Danson’s real-life wife of nearly three decades.
Mary Steenburgen as Mona and Ted Danson as Charles on the second season of A Man on the Inside | Colleen E. Hayes/Netflix
Now distancing a bit more from the documentary’s original plot, what did those new adjustments require from the creative team? Schur summed it up by pointing out a single question back. ‘How do we tell this new story in this new place, but with the same heart and soul of the first season?”.
He shares that the emotional tone is meant to stay aligned with Alberdi’s work and he always displays it as somewhat of a guideline.
And whether Charles ends up in another retirement community, another campus, or some entirely different undercover assignment in a potential third season, Schur says that compass will remain fixed.
“I think of the documentary The Mole Agent as a North Star for the show,” he reflects. “The essence of it, to me, is that I hope that anyone anywhere who loved the documentary will love the show and that they will feel like the show is doing right by it. That’s the number one priority I think we have as a creative team.”
Danson, who has visited Santiago several times, takes that idea one step further, turning the compliment back to the show’s South American roots.
“I’d also add that it’s no mistake that The Mole Agent came out of Chile,” he concludes.
“There’s a lot of heart, there’s a lot of emotion. There’s something very deep about your culture that touches the heart. And so… you should feel proud, I think, that you created The Mole Agent and that it was so powerful, that it allowed us to do that same theme all the way around the world. But it came from you and your heart.”
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