Want to work on a show about losers who are actually really winners? Fancy flexing your acting chops alongside big names such as Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Jack Lowden? Apple TV+’s spy thriller “Slow Horses” just might be for you, and it’s just been recommissioned for another two seasons, so there should be work aplenty! Here’s the lowdown on how to get cast on this thoroughbred show.
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Currently on its second season but recommissioned for at least two more, “Slow Horses” first debuted on Apple TV+ in April 2022. It’s a witty espionage thriller that celebrates the genre’s losers. The “slow horses” of the title are far from Jason Bourne–style secret agents — instead they’re sad sacks relegated to doing MI5’s admin in dreary office block Slough House.
Washed up and down on their luck, these spies are rejects who’ve mucked up in some way but for some reason haven’t been sacked. Now they’re left to wallow in paper-pushing boredom led by their grumpy, often drunk boss Jackson Lamb, played by Oldman. But don’t worry, thrill seekers, the “slow horses” soon find themselves at the centre of the action.
In addition to Oldman, the cast boasts some seriously heavyweight talent. Thomas is MI5 boss and schemer-in-chief Diana Taverner, while main reject spy River Cartwright is played by rising star and Scottish actor Lowden (who is currently a solid 16:1 bet to be the next James Bond).
The cast is rounded out by old hands Jonathan Pryce and Saskia Reeves, as well as established names such as Sophie Okonedo, Samuel West, and Freddie Fox. Plus, there’s a raft of up-and-coming actors such as Olivia Cooke, Dustin Demri-Burns, and Kadiff Kirwan to give the roster some new talent pep. “Slow Horses” is clearly a production that supports talent old and new.
The “Slow Horses” TV series is based on the “Slough House” books by Mick Herron. Currently there are 11 books in the series, so there’s plenty of material to get on with if Apple chooses to.
“Slow Horses,” the first book in the series, was published in 2010 and promptly sunk without trace. But Herron and his publisher kept the faith, and in 2017 people started to notice. “Horses” was named by a leading UK bookshop as its “thriller of the month” and suddenly the slow horse became a show pony.
Herron told the Guardian, “I could happily empathise with people not having a stunningly successful career, it’s fair to say.” But from that empathy came his best-selling cast of misfits and losers, the “slow horses” that would eventually bring him fame and fortune. So maybe the lesson here is to keep the faith!
Talking to GoldDerby, one of the TV show’s directors, James Hawes, says the team felt the pressure when it came to adapting the books: “It felt like an enormous responsibility to take on these much-loved books. And also to find a place in the spy genre where we could give it a different flavor, a different smell. That’s something that the team you have here and I talked about a lot. How do we clue in to everything there is in the British spy genre, where it’s at, and give it just that little twist.”
Part of the show’s winning formula is its sense of humour. “Slow Horses” spies often mess up, and the real world will comically intervene in a way it wouldn’t in a traditional Hollywood spy thriller. Very unglamorous British locations such as motorway service stations and greasy spoons feature heavily in the “Horses” world, which is all filmed on location in the UK.
Oldman told Sky News that keeping it real has been crucial to the show’s success: “I think that you go and see something like a James Bond movie — I certainly remember as a kid, you know, wanting to be in that world — you go, ‘Wow, who wouldn’t want to be James Bond?’ He can shoot 10 bad guys, fall off a building, and then just dust off his tuxedo, you know what I mean? With ‘Slow Horses,’ I think maybe some of the characters you watch, you go, ‘Oh, thank God I’m not like that’ — it’s the total reverse.”
The show has been nominated for five TV BAFTAs, including leading actor, supporting actor, editing, original music, and sound. Not bad for a bunch of misfits and losers, eh?
The casting director for “Slow Horses” is the legendary Nina Gold. She did the casting for the first two seasons, with help from associate Melissa Gethin Clarke, and will no doubt continue for the recommissions.
Gold is a busy lady — her 2022 casting film credits include “Empire of Light,” “Jurassic World: Dominion,” and “Catherine Called Birdy.” She also worked on a few other projects you might have heard of, such as “The Crown” and “Game of Thrones” — both of which she won Emmys for. Basically, Gold is a powerhouse and you want to be seen by her. So where to start?
First step, as always, is to keep checking Backstage. Then make sure your headshots, CV, and showreel are all ready for when the phone rings. Gold’s contact details are listed here, but do remember to be polite and professional when contacting a very busy leading CD.
When we spoke to Gold, she told us where she searches for talent: “I go to the theatre a lot, and I see people in mainstream theatre as well as weird small-scale fringe theater. I also go to drama schools and shows by drama groups a lot as well. I’m looking in all sorts of different places for people, trying to see people actually doing some acting.”
She also shared advice for actors auditioning for her: “I think it’s really good when people listen. When actors actively remember to listen in the audition room, that is definitely a good thing,” she says. “I guess it’s a kind of safe space to try stuff out, so, theoretically, everything is fine, really. As long as everybody is respecting each other, it’s the time to try different things out.
“Only become an actor if you absolutely have to, because it’s pretty difficult to do. You have to get ready to put up with a lot. There must be incredible highs, but also lots of disappointments and rejections, and learning to accept that is part of the whole of the job.”
However, if the audition doesn’t work out, she does have some words of comfort for you aspiring Horses: “It’s just such a delicate, hard-to-define thing that makes one person more right than the other nine people trying the thing. That thing is really hard to determine. There are certain factors about the way that the part and the actor are right for each other that has nothing to do with your audition. It doesn’t mean the fact that you didn’t get the part is because you’re not talented or great. It’s because there was something else that was more of a perfect fit with someone else. Each situation really is unique.”
To answer that question you might as well go to the horse’s mouth: Oscar winner Gary Oldman.
We asked him for his number one piece of audition advice, and he very sweetly obliged: “Well, it’s [been] a long time since I auditioned. I was given a piece of advice once, which I thought was good. I was very nervous and worried about an audition — this is many, many years ago now, I’m talking early 1980. I wanted very much to work at a theatre company called the Citizens Theatre; it was very renowned, and it was one of my ambitions to work there, so I was more nervous about this particular audition. And a young director that I had done a little bit of work with said to me, ‘When you go in to do this audition, you’re probably going to be one of the best actors they’ve seen all week, because you have this thing in your head that you’re less than.’ I still have it. I think it’s the natural thing of the performer, or someone who is creative: egomaniac with low self-esteem.
“You’ve got to have something that pushes you forward to just get up there in front of people, and yet there’s a vulnerability and insecurity that comes with it. I think that’s what keeps driving you to get better and better and better. But I remember it really helped; it did take the edge off the nerves. And take your time. Breathe and take your time. If they’re horrid to you, then maybe they weren’t worth working for anyway — that’s what matters. That’s why I always think it doesn’t cost very much to be polite and to be nice.”
Oldman’s main tip for actors is to have a passion for acting, and if not, then maybe reconsider: “If you test positive for the theater disease and you just have this thing in you, then you keep going. If you’re just dabbling in it, or you just have a mild, passing interest, or you think it might be cool to be a movie star, or you’ll get more people following you on Instagram — you know what I mean? You’ve got to really live, eat, sleep, [and] breathe it. You know if you have that. It’s a calling rather than just something you kind of want to do for want of doing something else. It’s like anything; it’s a drive that you have, and I think that drive will keep you going.”
Fellow “Slow Horses” alumni Kadiff Kirwan, who is at the opposite end of his career to Oldman, gave this advice when we spoke to him about auditions, “Rejection never really gets easier. It’s less painful when you actually get the ‘no,’ but often you don’t hear back at all, which is awful. If someone’s going to present their work to you, the least you can do is let them know. But you have to know it’s momentary. You might be out of work for months, but something will come along. It’s just the nature of the job. Now, if I’m free in any way, I write. It’s a passion I can do between acting. But if that falls through, I pull a mean pint.”