Entertainment
Gary Oldman on real-life character inspirations as he gears up for more Jackson Lamb in Slow Horses season 2-Tori Brazier-Entertainment – Metro
The Oscar-winner made his TV debut in the show’s first season earlier this year.
The Hollywood star has ‘enormous fun’ playing the objectionable Jackson Lamb (Picture: Apple TV+)
Gary Oldman has said that real-life inspirations he takes for roles tend to ‘reveal themselves over time’ to him as he mused on playing prickly MI5 agent Jackson Lamb in Apple TV Plus show Slow Horses.
The Oscar-winner made his TV debut in the series earlier this year and returns in December for a second season of the bleak comedy drama revolving around misfit operatives.
Based on Mick Herron’s Slough House books, Oldman’s notorious and unpleasant Lamb rules over a team of exiles sent to the intelligence service’s most bleak building and assigned the least glamorous tasks following previous failures.
Opposite Saskia Reeves as his long-suffering assistant Catherine Standish, they oversee a team of juniors played by actors including Jack Lowden, Rosalind Eleazar, Dustin Demri-Burns and Christopher Chung – and answer to Kristin Scott Thomas’ clipped MI5 deputy director-general, Diana Taverner.
When asked if he had used any real-life inspiration for his portrayal of Lamb and the disdainful yet affectionate relationship he shares with Standish, the 64-year-old joked that it ‘would be telling’.
Speaking exclusively to Metro.co.uk, he added: ‘I think you discover things as you go along. You start with your initial ideas or inspirations or instincts.
Discussing inspirations, the actor said they tended to reveal themselves to him after the fact (Picture: Getty)
‘Mick [Herron] said something very interesting earlier on, he was asked a question about a character [and] whether he intended how the person was interpreting the character. And he said, “Yeah, I could see that now – but I wasn’t particularly very conscious of it when I was actually writing it. Now I can, with hindsight, and looking at it.”’
Oldman agreed that he would need time to identify which of his own experiences he might have inadvertently poured into his portrayal.
‘It’s an interesting question, and you know what, I don’t know if I can answer it today, but a year down the line or something, it might click and you go, “Oh, I know what this relationship is like.”
‘Things like that, they reveal themselves over time.’
Co-star Reeves shared on her character, recovering alcoholic Standish, too.
Saskia Reeves is Oldman’s sparring partner in the drab Slough House purgatory, Standish (Picture: Apple TV+)
Slow Horses follows a team of MI5 misfits led by Oldman’s Lamb, who are being punished for past failures (Picture: Apple TV+)
‘Well, I don’t I want to be specific – but there’s definitely something in Catherine that I get from some of my Dutch relatives,’ she admitted.
‘It’s a little bit too tightly wound and a bit over tidy and a bit tight. The way Mick wrote her though, it was such a profound… it was quite a unique experience, meeting her in the novel. So I sort of riffed on that and then little bits of myself, and then some of my Dutch relatives.’
Slow Horses season two also sees the residents of Slough House let loose and travelling around for their work beyond the confines of the drab concrete of London as long-buried Cold War secrets emerge which threaten to bring carnage to the streets of the capital.
When a liaison with Russian villains takes a fatal turn, our hapless heroes must overcome their individual failings and raise their spy game in a race to prevent a catastrophic incident.
Jack Lowden plays ambitious young agent River Cartwright (Picture: Apple TV+)
Reeves explained: ‘The second season I think starts off so differently because it’s so damn hot and that contrast immediately pulls us into another world. Suddenly we’re in a different [place] and relationships have changed and developed.
‘So it really sort of gets all knotted up in a very different way, and yet [it’s still] the same people that we fell for in the first season.’
Oldman also confirmed suspicions that he is having ‘enormous fun’ playing a human as objectionable as Lamb, with his penchant for farting, daytime drinking and blunt put-downs.
‘If you’re playing mean and ugly and you have bad writing, then it’s difficult. Offensive mean and ugly with [writer] Will Smith and Mick Herron is a lot easier,’ he told Metro.co.uk and other press in a roundtable ahead of the debut of Slow Horses season two.
‘It’s enormous fun, I really do have to say. I think people – everyone’s had that boss, or you’ve met those people along the way where I think secretly you would just love to be brutally honest. And I think that’s what we find amusing and funny about Lamb. There’s something that we maybe recognize or go, “Oh, I wish I could talk to someone like that. There’s no filter!”
‘But it’s fun, to answer your question, when you’ve got good writing.’
More: Trending
He jokingly finished: ‘I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m not saying anyone could do it, but it does help, doesn’t it, when you’ve got a good text.’
Slow Horses has already been commissioned for seasons three and four by streamer Apple TV Plus.
Slow Horses season two premieres on Apple TV+ on December 2.
Got a story?
If you’ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you.
MORE : Gary Oldman ‘not sure he’d still be here’ if it wasn’t for 25 years of sobriety
Entertainment – MetroRead More
