‘Slow Horses’ Director Goes Inside Season 6 Premiere — and Says Jack Lowden Would Be a “Pretty Perfect” James Bond

[This story contains MAJOR spoilers from the Slow Horses season six premiere, “Circle of Life.”]

If you’ve ever been to London, you know it’s wise to pack an umbrella, and the season six premiere of Slow Horses has its fair share of rain, both literally and figuratively. The episode, which released on Wednesday, sees River (Jack Lowden) dealing with the death of his grandfather (Jonathan Pryce), while the Slow Horses work out that someone has killed two former Slough House agents — and anyone could be next.

Meanwhile at the Park, First Desk Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas) has a sinking feeling that politician Peter Judd (Samuel West) might have gotten one over on her when she extorted ill-gotten gains from him, and Slough House boss Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) confronts her for failing to inform him of the deaths of his former agents. When River’s mercenary father, Frank Harkness (Hugo Weaving), shows up at David Cartwright’s funeral, the puzzle gets even more complex.

It’s already been a big week for Slow Horses — season five director Saul Metzstein won an Emmy and the series was renewed for season eight. Now, Adam Randall, who helmed the current season (after winning an Emmy himself for his efforts on season four), sits down with The Hollywood Reporter to break down the hit show’s return and preview the “roller coaster” to come.

“If you believe in the characters and they’re truthful, I feel like you can take it to a lot of different places,” he teased. He also described an unfilmed “alternate universe” version of season six that the writers room came up with, and weighed in on Oldman’s recent suggestion that Lowden is on the shortlist to be the next James Bond (although THR understands that no final casting decision has been made).

You directed all six episodes this season, is that right?

Yes. The thing about Slow Horses is that it’s always one director for the whole season.

My understanding is that’s kind of unusual in television — was it overwhelming?

It’s unusual for TV, for sure. I’d only made films before Slow Horses, so I only really know starting and finishing something. So for me, it was fantastic and I couldn’t imagine doing half of it, building it all up and then letting somebody else finish it. Especially as the season always builds to these climaxes.

The plot can get kind of complicated on this show, so I imagine it would be hard to hand it off.

Definitely. The first few episodes are always setting up all of these different strands, and then, particularly with season six, it just goes. By episode three — you’re on a roller coaster.

And in the first episode, you definitely set up a few different strands: There are these two assassins trying to kill Slow Horses, and then Frank Harkness shows up and you don’t really know how he’s involved.

That was something we wrangled with a lot in the writers room — all of these different strands — because it was two different books as well, so you set up a lot of things. You set up Taverner, and that she’s obviously done something she’s concerned about, and you set up “Jim and Jane,” the assassins, and then you set up Frank, and you have no idea how they connect. Then over the course of the six episodes, they all sort of become one.

This was the first season where you adapted two novels. Not having read them myself, you’re saying the assassins were the focus of one novel and the Frank Harkness storyline was the other book?

Exactly, Frank Harkness was in [author Mick Herron’s] Joe Country, which is an amazing novel — it would have made a great movie, but it doesn’t involve all the characters fully. It’s very much like taking a group of characters to Wales in the snow, and it’s this hunt that involves Frank. So we were thinking about how we’d adapt that and we looked at the following book, Slough House, which was a more complicated spy story. There are amazing elements in that, particularly for Taverner and Lamb, and also with the reintroduction of Sid [Olivia Cooke, whose character was presumed dead after the events of season one]. We spent a lot of time back and forth discussing, how can we bring the different elements together?

I know you weren’t personally involved in the first season, but did you always know you were bringing Sid back? In season one, they did mention the possibility that she might still be alive.

I’m not sure if the book that she returns in had already been written by that point, I don’t think it had, so I don’t think anybody fully knew apart from Mick Herron. (Writer’s note: We checked, and The Slough House book came out in February 2021, when most of the show’s first season had already been filmed.) We knew going [into this season] because we had the book that Sid returned in Slough House, then it became a conversation of can we get her back? She’s very busy on many things.

Right, she’s on House of the Dragon.

Exactly, so we wrote the whole story based on her coming back. Then we thought we might not get her back, and we had to re-form the writers room and do a whole version, which is like an alternate universe where there is no Sid, and there was a completely different character.

So there’s a whole script out there for that?

Yeah, and it was nowhere near as good. We all felt like, “We just have to get her back.” Then we found out we could, so we re-formed the room for the third time and introduced her back into it.

The other returning character was Harkness, who wasn’t in season five. He was last in season four, which you directed as well.

Exactly. I love the character of Frank and I absolutely love Hugo Weaving and working with him. And it didn’t feel finished, that story. We knew he was back in Joe Country, and season six is sort of a sequel to season four, in the River and Frank relationship. We have River dealing with his father issues and obviously he loses his grandfather this season, so those ideas that we set up in season four with these different paternal figures — Lamb, his grandfather and Frank — that’s very much hanging over him this season as well.

It’s interesting that even though Lamb is sort of the main character, in that he’s the mastermind of Slough House, River is the only character in the show that you see his family relationships.

The show is really interesting in that there are sort of these two protagonists. You’ve got Lamb, who is almost this Columbo-like figure, incredibly smart, always one step ahead, seemingly never-changing — even though I feel like subtly each season peels back a layer. And then you’ve got River, who’s got a much bigger arc and bigger changes over the course of it, when you think about him in season one, then by the time he gets to season six all of these different elements come into his life. Whether it’s his father and dealing with his grandfather and then Sid returning, these all have a huge impact on him.

As you mentioned earlier, we find out in the premiere that River’s grandfather, David Cartwright, has died. Jonathan Pryce provides a special dimension to the show, both as an actor and as far as his character’s relationship with River. What do you think will be most significant about losing him?

It was gutting, him leaving, because he’s just so brilliant. Working with him and Jack together in season four was one of the great things I got to do on season four. I can’t remember whether it’s in the book, but at one point [in the scriptwriting process], we didn’t see Jonathan again. The premiere begins and he’s already gone. But we really wanted to experience that last moment with him and River, and it’s just remarkable. It goes to show with Jonathan, there’s this moment where River’s sat on the side of the bed and we pull focus at the last moment to Jonathan, and as we pull focus, a tear just trickles down his cheek, and it’s the most perfect thing. It’s just masterful. I think he’s only in that sequence in season six, but his presence is felt throughout it and has a huge bearing on River’s behavior and his emotional journey through the season.

I wanted to ask you about the tone of the show. There’s this funny conceit that all the people in Slough House are a bit of screwups, but the show also gets very emotional and suspenseful, and the stakes are often very high. Is it hard to find that balance?

It all comes through the characters. If you believe in the characters and they’re truthful, I feel like you can take it to a lot of different places. They’re inherently funny, and they are screwups, but they’re also quite good, most of them, at what they do. We definitely pushed it further this season. We pushed it to darker places, we pushed the action and brutality of what they go through. It’s not sort of knockabout fun. I mean, there is a bit of knockabout fun, but when there is violence, we really wanted it to feel real and painful and messy. It’s not glamorous.

But because of these characters, there’s always humanity and humor underneath it. And also with these actors, they’re always finding some way of bringing lightness or humor to everything. A lot of the great [funny] moments were just made up on the day, they’re just great little improvisations. … It’s the Slow Horses-ness. You play it serious, you play it dark, but that’s also who they are.

Is there a lot of improvising in the show, or does that just come out every once in a while?

There is quite a lot, and there’s a lot of playing around when we get in in the morning, and we sit and talk about the scene, a lot of things shift. Throughout it, there will be lines and ideas that are thrown on. It’s an incredibly collaborative and fun process.

There’s also a fair bit of action and stunt work. In the first episode, there’s an extensive sequence where River jumps on the hood of the car to try and stop Harkness from getting away. How did you go about that?

It’s one of the best moments in the book, actually. Again, it’s that balance of it being slightly absurd and funny and coming out of pure emotion and pain. It’s a ridiculous thing to do, but you totally understand why River had done that. So we always wanted that to be a part of it.

Actually, on the day, one of the things is that Hugo can’t drive. So, there were different elements in terms of practically how we did that. But Jack genuinely got on the bonnet [hood] of the car with a stunt driver driving him around that church, all of that was Jack. Once he gets thrown off, there were some stunts involved, but a lot of it’s Jack, and then Hugo we did with greenscreen and had a stunt double to drive.

It was a really fun sequence, and the most challenging thing was: Why does River jump on the car? It’s such a silly thing to do, so we had to build it out of utter rage. We built up his rage in the conversation and the way that Frank hits him in the neck and leaves him on the floor and patronizes him, saying, “I’m sorry your mum didn’t turn up. Must have been a tough day for you.” It’s so patronizing that Jack found the more that he’s banging on and loses his mind, the more you buy into the fact that he’s going to jump onto the car and do anything to stop this man from driving away.

I watched that a second time because I wanted to remember how it played out. It seems like it would be absurd, but when you’re watching it, it’s pretty suspenseful and you’re concerned about River.

You also know from seeing Frank in season four that he has a different way with people. He’s prepared to hurt and kill if need be. He’s got a strange relationship with River. There’s not a huge amount of love there, so you don’t know how far he’s going to take it, especially if he feels annoyed with River, so once he’s jumped on the hood of that car, you don’t quite know what Frank’s going to do in that situation. And we played around with Hugo, and at first he’s laughing a bit but then he gets slightly annoyed, so he slams on his brakes and just speeds away.

They do have an interesting relationship, because Frank had that history of building his little army of his sons that we saw in season four, and he’s this very ruthless person who seems like he will do anything.

Frank in this season is so interesting, because in season four he’s this sort of evil villain. He’s built up this army of his sons — it’s bizarre, but anyway — of assassins, and he’s kind of on top of things. But everything went wrong for him in season four. Now, he’s basically a gun for hire and he’s a bit more disheveled and he’s embarrassed of the position he’s in. He’s gotten quite lowly, so there’s a different emotional story for Frank. He’s coming from a different place that’s interesting to explore in this season.

Regarding Jack Lowden, Gary Oldman made some recent comments suggesting that the next James Bond had been picked, and he hopes it will be Jack. What are your thoughts on that?

I don’t know anything beyond what everybody else knows. I think you’ve seen from six seasons that he’d be pretty perfect. I love James Bond, and I love all the iterations of James Bond. Obviously, Daniel Craig and Sean Connery have sort of the tougher [style], but I also grew up with Roger Moore and that kind of winking to the audience. The thing that Jack can do so well is bring comedy and humor into the most serious moments. He can play it very straight, he’s an amazing drama actor, he can play action, but he can also always find the funny. It’s that combination that would make him a very good pick.

Do you think that Slow Horses owes anything to James Bond, because there’s that built-in love for British spies?

I’m sure it does somewhere. It’s obviously very different to James Bond. James Bond is brilliant at everything. You know, if James Bond goes skiing or plays golf, he’s the best. Whereas our characters are more like us in that they’re not, and they’re making things up. It’s a much messier, grungier world. But they live in a world, the Slow Horses, where James Bond exists as a fictional character. I think River probably watched James Bond as a kid and that was equally why he wanted to go into his grandfather’s business. “I want to be like him.” But it just doesn’t work out like that in the world of Slow Horses.

Which is what we all love about the Slow Horses.

Exactly.

We’re speaking before the 2026 Emmys, but this will come out afterward. The show has a number of nominations. Do you have any special plans or hopes for the night?

It’s for season five, which wasn’t my season, but yeah, I have my fingers crossed for them. It’d be amazing to get some Emmy wins. I just find it pretty remarkable that Slow Horses is up there with those shows. It feels like a kind of underdog British show, and then for the last few years it’s always sort of stood up there and it feels proud to be a part of that.

Six seasons in itself is a pretty good run, and the seventh and eighth seasons have already been announced. Do you think the show has many more years left in it?

We’ve just caught up with Mick Herron, so who knows what happens next? It’s such a fast turnaround, this show, they shoot two seasons almost in a year, so it’s always far ahead. And if people carry on loving it and the people making it carry on loving making it, who knows?

And you’re also directing season eight?

Yes. It’s based on the book Clown Town, which came out last year. It’s a good one, it’s a really good one.

I don’t suppose you can say much more about that yet. Was there anything else you wanted to mention about what to expect this season?

I’m really proud of it. It has a different flavor, I think, to the seasons before it. We tried to push it visually in a slightly different direction as well, pushed the action in a slightly different direction and tried to make it — inherently to the story — slightly more emotional. There’s a lot that happens, there’s a lot of death hanging over this season, so there’s a seriousness to it, as well as all the fun. That was nice to explore with the show, how far we can push the tone.

A lot of characters do tend to die in the show.

Yeah, you just don’t know. We don’t kill anyone Mick hasn’t killed. So it’s really exciting. With Clown Town, I knew I was going to do it, I was reading that book, thinking, “Who survives Clown Town?” I have no idea.

Season six, episode one of Slow Horses is available on Apple TV. New episodes will be released weekly on Wednesdays through Oct. 21.