As we prepare for the 31st Screen Actors Guild Awards, Backstage is breaking down this year’s film and television ensemble nominees for your consideration.
Main cast: Christopher Chung, Rosalind Eleazar, Jack Lowden, Gary Oldman, Jonathan Pryce, Kristin Scott Thomas, Hugo Weaving
Casting by: Melissa Gethin Clarke and Nina Gold
Created by: Will Smith
Distributed by: Apple TV+
Espionage dramas are not typically known for their humor, but they also don’t usually put career failures at center stage. But that’s the darkly comic setup of Will Smith’s sharply written “Slow Horses.” Without sacrificing tension or suspense, the sprawling cast’s barbed banter and witty interplay fuel the propulsive, twisty plots as much as any ticking time bomb or national security threat.
Gary Oldman and Jack Lowden Talk All Things ‘Slow Horses’ The “slow horses” of the title, relegated to the dreary purgatory called Slough House, are MI5 operatives who have blundered badly, effectively ending their careers, yet who cannot, for various reasons, be fired. By sticking them in dead-end jobs, the service hopes they will quit on their own or quietly waste their lives without bothering anyone. But these seemingly useless agents become involved in high-stakes operations in spite of—or perhaps due to—their expendability.
Anchoring the cast is Gary Oldman’s eccentric, wickedly hilarious turn as Jackson Lamb, the physically repulsive and crass head of Slough House. Once a brilliant agent, he has fallen from grace for reasons gradually revealed. Lazy and sarcastic, he is everything a good spy, on the surface, should not be. Yet Oldman is canny in showing us that beneath the gross exterior lies a wise, cunning force to be reckoned with, one who is casually cruel to his underlings but also works behind the scenes to protect them. This often involves matching wits with Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas), the imposing and ruthless head of operations and so-called “second desk” at MI5. Harnessing her natural grace, Thomas plays Diana as eloquent but quietly dangerous, acting mainly in her own self-interest and heedless of whatever collateral damage might occur from her schemes to ascend through the ranks.
Functioning as a pseudo-protagonist, Jack Lowden’s River Cartwright is idealistic and intrepid, though the botched training exercise that landed him in Slough House still haunts him. On the fourth season, his past is explored when his cognitively declining grandfather (Jonathan Pryce, riveting as ever in a role tinged with sadness), a former MI5 higher-up, begins letting old secrets slip, which may involve a connection to the shadowy criminal Frank Harkness (Hugo Weaving).
The balance of personalities in Slough House makes for great chemistry. Rosalind Eleazar’s Louisa Guy is smart and grounded despite her bitterness, acting as a confidant to River, especially as their friendship has solidified over previous seasons. Christopher Chung is pathetically endearing as the socially inept computer specialist Roddy Ho, making another unlikable character oddly charming for his oblivious arrogance and occasional, surprising competence.
Each season of this absorbing spy drama has welcomed new characters and bid farewell to others, sometimes to devastating effect. Yet its revolving supporting players and riveting regulars manage to always find the right balance between spy craft and wisecracks.
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