Joel Kinnaman in 'High Value Target.' Courtesy of TNT Logo text Joel Kinnaman says playing former CIA analyst John Nixon opposite Waleed Zuaiter as a defiant Saddam Hussein was made easier by his co-star having a stark resemblance to the ruthless Iraqi dictator he had to interrogate in TNT’s High Value Target: The Hunt for Saddam limited series.
“That was such a treat. Waleed, apart from doing a great performance, looked so much like Saddam. There were times when the light hit him in certain ways and I was looking upwards and I was like, ‘Holy fuck! It’s Saddam!” Kinnaman tells The Hollywood Reporter about scenes where he grilled Zuaiter as the deposed Iraqi leader, after his capture by U.S. forces in Dec. 2003.
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Nixon and U.S. soldiers in Iraq took part in a massive manhunt for Hussein after he lost power, one that included a $25 million bounty. Kinnaman recounted taking photos of Baghdad Central actor Zuaiter on the High Value Target set as if both actors had stepped into history two decades after the Iraq war. “I was like, ‘Waleed, just stand there. Still, still… I got to take this photo,” he recounted.
Kinnaman’s performance of the first CIA officer to question Saddam after his dramatic capture was inspired by Nixon’s 2016 memoir Debriefing the President: The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein. Kinnaman read Nixon’s book and spent time with the former CIA analyst as research for his role before walking onto the High Value Target set.
The series adaptation’s ensemble cast includes Lena Góra, Rebecca Night, Ewan Miller, Tom Berenger, Matt Barr, Paul Ryan, Christopher McDonald, Dar Salim and Talia Balsam. High Value Target is created by Daniel Stiepleman and Jonathan Wakeham, and co-written and directed by Leslie Greif; the series is produced by AR Content and Big Dreams Entertainment.
High Value Target: The Hunt for Saddam. Courtesy of TNT With the TNT adaptation having dramatized the memoir, Kinnaman also took liberties with his portrayal of Nixon. “John [Nixon] is not a public figure. And you’re playing something that was 20 years ago. So I didn’t really feel a need to perfectly impersonate him and capture all of his mannerisms. It was getting the essence – he’s this very big, tall, lumbering guy and he has a bit of a nerdy quality,” the actor explained.
Kinnaman also appreciated the “eye-opening” adapted screenplay for the eight-part TNT series having revealed that, during the CIA interrogation, Hussein had bluffed about having so-called weapons of mass destruction before the U.S. invasion to project strength against Middle East arch-rival Iran and not appear weak as a dictator.
Kinnaman describes the Iraqi dictator’s ambiguity about his regime’s WMD arsenal during weapons inspections before the U.S. invasion as a desperate gambit to stay in power. “Well, of course, if I would 100 percent, without a doubt, prove to the world that I have no weapons, then as soon as you march away, Iran is going to invade,” he said of Hussein’s deception.
From that comes Kinnaman’s performance as Nixon showing the CIA analyst who is under a microscope with his superiors to see if he could break Hussein and produce the WMDs during tense interrogation scenes instead showing grudging respect for the fallen dictator. The series’ final episode has Nixon during a White House meeting warning U.S. President George W. Bush, played by Paul Ryan, that deposing Hussein had opened the door to Iran likely prevailing in Iraq and undermining the U.S. occupation.
Kinnaman sees similarities between his portrayal of Nixon navigating the early and bloody first months of the ill-fated invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the U.S. and Israel attacking Iran in February 2026.
“I’m a little bit more cynical than just thinking it’s a lack of knowledge. I think there are much more cynical forces at play that have their own interests and their own agenda, and they manipulate the political system and the politicians, who let themselves be played by this,” Kinnaman argued. He added the U.S. Iraq war stands to be repeated with Trump’s current military misadventures in Iran.
“You didn’t need much game theory to see what would happen if you attack Iran. Everyone knew exactly what would happen, and even ‘Donald] Trump knew what was going to happen. It’s whose interest is actually behind that and what forces are pushing us into these devastating conflicts,” he said. “It’s an absolute tragedy for America, for the innocent people that get killed and for the American people,” he added.
“That scene was close to reality,” Kinnaman said. “The experiences John had in Iraq and seeing the human cost and human toll of these policies and ignoring reality, ignoring the real intel and ignoring anything not feeding the narrative they wanted to purport, he was just fed up with that.”
The U.S. occupation of Iraq begun in 2003 and ended Hussein’s 23-year brutal regime, but also sparked a series of sectarian conflicts that has since destabilized Iraq and played to Iran’s advantage in the Middle East.
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