Oscar winner Gary Oldman stars in new thriller series Slow Horses | Channel

Gary Oldman in Slow Horses.

• Academy award winner Gary Oldman stars in the new AppleTV+
  series Slow Horses.
• The series is a less glamorous take on the British secret
  services, centring around a group of bored MI5 misfits.
• About his character, Oldman said: “I don’t know if I
  like Jackson Lamb, but I certainly really love playing him.”

New Apple TV+ series Slow Horses offers a less
glamorous take on the British secret services, centring around a group of bored
MI5 misfits.

The show stars Oscar-winner Gary Oldman in the role of
Jackson Lamb, a quick-witted but ill-mannered head of a team of intelligence
officers who have been relegated to MI5’s agent graveyard “Slough
House” after committing public slip-ups such as leaving classified
documents on a train or sleeping with an ambassador’s wife.

Among them is River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), the grandson
of a revered and now retired agent (Jonathan Pryce), who recently bungled a
high-profile training exercise. Eager to redeem himself and return to the
Regent’s Park headquarters, Cartwright sees his chance when a young Muslim
student is kidnapped, and a washed-up journalist leads him on the abductors’
tracks.

But first, he must get the mission past his unkempt,
flatulent boss, who seems more interested in getting drunk and insulting his
staff than doing any work.

“I don’t know if I like Jackson Lamb, but I certainly
really love playing him,” Oldman told Reuters as he attended the series’
premiere in London.

“He is slovenly. He’s a chain smoker, alcoholic, I
would imagine he probably smells a bit like an ashtray. Sticky, sweaty, greasy
hair. Yeah, playing Jackson Lamb’s like easing yourself into dirty bath
water.”

“I laugh. I just laugh, and we hope that we get a take
where I don’t laugh,” said Lowden of acting opposite the 64-year-old.

Gary Oldman and Jack Lowden in Slow Horses.

Photo: AppleTV+

Based on Mick Herron’s first novel in the series of
Slough House books, the six-part show follows the failed spies
carrying out monotonous daily tasks and dodging offers for after-work drinks.

“It’s a character piece set in an office … it’s not
the sort of fantastical world of James Bond,” said Oldman.

“At its essence, it’s a sort of office workplace drama
that happens to be in the world of espionage. It’s probably as close as you get
to what it’s actually like to work for the services,” added Lowden.

The show, which features The Rolling Stones frontman Mick
Jagger’s first TV theme song, also stars Kristen Scott Thomas, Olivia Cooke and
Rosalind Eleazar among its ensemble cast. A second season has already been
filmed.

WATCH THE TRAILER HERE:

Slow Horses is now streaming on Apple TV+.