Doug Urbanski May Have Found the Next Project to Keep Gary Oldman From Retiring

Doug Urbanski May Have Found the Next Project to Keep Gary Oldman From Retiring

Slow Horses, as the show’s executive producer Doug Urbanski is keen to say, is not your grandfather’s spy show. The Apple TV+ hit — up for five Emmys, including best drama series for its fourth season — takes the cloak-and-dagger espionage of a John le Carré thriller and squeezes it through the tea-stained filter of snarky British comedy (lead writer Will Smith cut his teeth on Armando Iannucci’s caustic pre-Veep political satire The Thick of It).

In place of a debonair James Bond superspy, we have Jackson Lamb, the slovenly, flatulent remnant of a once-great MI5 agent. Played with shambolic brilliance by Gary Oldman, Lamb oversees a team at Slough House, a shabby off-site dumping ground for disgraced and rejected agents.

The series is based on the novels by Mick Herron, with each book as one six-episode season. From an appropriately languid start — the first two seasons gathered critical acclaim but mostly flew under the radar — Slow Horses has steadily gained recognition. Season three, which scored nine Emmy nominations and one writing win for Smith, marked its official mainstream breakout.

Urbanski spoke to THR about how applying old-school studio discipline to keep “the trains running on time and budget” has kept the show — and everyone involved — on track, and how one perfectly timed fart helped redefine the modern spy drama.

What’s the Slow Horses origin story?

Gary Oldman and I initially wanted to do a sequel to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy [the 2011 le Carré adaptation Urbanski produced starring Oldman]. But the le Carré estate didn’t want Gary to play [the lead character George] Smiley again. Eventually, Gary said, “Can’t we find something for me with no prosthetics, no accent, no wig, where I can use my own accent — preferably in the spy genre?” Soon after, his agent called asking whether I would consider a television series, and I said yes.

We shot Slow Horses during the pandemic, which was very odd. We couldn’t travel freely, so I watched a lot of Columbo and Perry Mason. Those shows are consistently good. They knew how to keep stories engaging with character and pace. That inspired how we approached Slow Horses. From the start, we wanted it to feel like a six-hour movie, not traditional episodic TV. We shoot it like one long movie and then break it into episodes.

Apple TV+ has confirmed there will be a season seven, but since you do two seasons back-to-back, should we assume season eight is also confirmed?

You might think so. I couldn’t possibly comment.

Why has it resonated more than other spy genre entries?

Wonderful source material helps, but it doesn’t guarantee a good product. You need to get into the DNA of it. Mick Herron’s books are irreverent but dark. It’s a nearly impossible tonal balance — like Killing Eve did well for a couple seasons. The first thing we had to say was: This is not your grandfather’s spy show. This is not James Bond, it’s not John le Carré. It’s not Austin Powers, either. It’s going to be its own thing. The key thing is, we’re not making a spy show with characters thrown in. We’re making a character study that happens to have thrills and chases. That shift in focus makes the audience fall in love with the characters. They’re flawed. They drink; gamble; lose their temper. It resonates. It’s human.

Was Jackson Lamb’s infamous character introduction in episode one, when he farts himself awake, always part of the show?

That came later. We had about 28 cuts of episode one, season one. Something was missing. I called [Apple TV+ Europe boss] Jay Hunt and said, “It’s context.” She agreed. I told Gary, and he said, “I’ve got the perfect thing: Lamb waking himself up with a fart.” It was our way of telling viewers, “This is not your grandfather’s spy show.”

Do you feel a responsibility to keep the show going because Gary Oldman has said he might retire after it ends?

I had a recent conversation with Gary. He asked, “How long do you think this will go?” I told him, “As long as we can keep it good. If it ever starts getting stupid, we’ll stop.” But he has told me he would like to do a new show immediately after this one. We may have found something. If so, we’d bring it to Apple first. But first, our job is to finish what we’ve committed to. 

This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.