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“Slow Horses” showrunner and writer Will Smith told TheWrap that one of the things he loves about the show’s lead, the gruff, unkempt Jackson Lamb, is that the spy series leaves much of the character’s backstory untold.

“Lamb has seen a lot of loss and he’s slightly burnt out from it all,” Smith told TheWrap following the Season 4 finale, in which Slough House loses yet another agent.

“He hasn’t got the emotional bandwidth to deal with that anymore,” Smith continued. “He talks about that in Series 1. He says to River, “It’s a tough life. And when I was your age, I lost the baker’s dozen.'”

Even if someone where to mount an adaptation of Mick Herron’s 2023 novel “The Secret Hours,” which spends half of the book with Lamb and MI5 archivist Molly Doran (Naomi Wirthner) in Berlin during the Cold War, Smith...

All the pieces are in place for a gripping Slow Horses finale — season four antagonist Hugo Weaving certainly thinks so.

The Brit, best known for his role in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, joined this season’s cast of Apple TV+’s hit spy thriller based on the Slough House series of novels by Mick Herron. Weaving stars as Frank Harkness, a former CIA agent-turned-cult leader aiming to populate the planet with trained killers (who will gladly do their father’s sinister bidding).

But as the season has unfolded, viewers have come to realize Harkness might be none other than River Cartwright’s (Jack Lowden) biological father — after all, the physical similarities between River and “Robert Winters” a.k.a Betrand, who Jonathan Pryce’s David Cartwright shot and killed, are pretty eerie.

Meanwhile, Gary Oldman‘s greasy, drunk yet impossibly wise Jackson Lamb has made it his mission to locate the elder Cartwright,...

Gold Derby can exclusively reveal that Jack Lowden is entering the “Slow Horses” episode “Hard Lessons” as his 2024 Emmy Award submission for Best Drama Supporting Actor. “Hard Lessons” aired on November 29, 2023, and is the second episode of the Apple TV+ drama’s third season.

In “Hard Lessons”: River (Lowden) races to the Barbican Bridge and meets James “Spider” Webb (Freddie Fox), acting on behalf of the kidnappers who have threatened his family. Webb instructs River to steal the Prime Minister’s vetting file from MI5 headquarters before midday or Standish (Saskia Reeves) will be killed. At the Park, River evades Nick Duffy (Chris Reilly), the head of the Dogs, and gradually works his way into the records department after stealing a security pass from another Dog, Hobbs (Chris Coghill). Head of records Molly Doran (Naomi Wirthner) refuses to help River find the Pm’s file. Lamb (Gary Oldman) calls,...

My earliest memory? Giving my sister 'Smarties' that I knew were pills

Stephen Dillane, 57, grew up in London. He studied at Exeter University, then joined the Croydon Advertiser but left to enrol at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. In the early 1990s, his performance in the National Theatre's Angels In America and his Hamlet for the Peter Hall Company attracted critical acclaim. In 2000, he won a Tony award for his role in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing. His films include Welcome To Sarajevo (1997) and The Hours (2002). Since 2012, he has played Stannis Baratheon in TV's Game Of Thrones, and he starred in the Sky Atlantic thriller The Tunnel, which is out on DVD. He has two sons with the actor Naomi Wirthner.

When were you happiest?

Playing football in the school playground at lunchtime.

What is your earliest memory?

Giving my sister "Smarties" that I knew were pills.

Which...