“We were actually filming Season 5 of ‘Slow Horses,’ so we were actually on set,” says director Saul Metzstein about the day that he and the cast and crew found out about the show’s nine Emmy nominations. For our recent webchat he adds, “News came in of various nominations and it was actually quite fun and it was very disruptive with exec producers wanting to call me and things like that and I’m like, ‘I’ve got one more shot to get!’ So there was some poetry involved in the fact that it was exactly at the same time as we were filming more of it.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
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“Slow Horses” is based on Mick Herron‘s series of novels, adapted by showrunner Will Smith (“Veep”), about a group of MI5 agents who are consigned to a dumping ground for rejects paying the price for their past mistakes. The outcasts of the British intelligence agency that are banished to the administrative purgatory of Slough House are known as “slow horses.” They’re expected to endure interminably dull, paper-pushing drudgery, along with occasional berating from their rude and abrasive boss, Jackson Lamb. Oscar winner and Emmy nominee Gary Oldman plays the rude, crass and often drunk department head with a bracing panache, reveling in being as unapologetically miserable as possible, while showing flashes of the intellect, perceptiveness and savvy from his former life as a respected spy. The spy drama co-stars Jack Lowden, Oscar and Emmy nominee Kristin Scott Thomas, Saskia Reeves, Rosalind Eleazar, Christopher Chung, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Kadiff Kirwan, Freddie Fox, Tony winner and Oscar and Emmy nominee Sophie Okonedo, Chris Reilly and Tony winner and Oscar and Emmy nominee Jonathan Pryce.
“Slow Horses” scored an impressive nine Emmy nominations this year; for Best Drama Series, Oldman for Best Drama Actor, Lowden for Best Drama Supporting Actor, Pryce for Best Drama Guest Actor, Smith for writing (for the episode “Negotiating with Tigers”), and for the show’s editing, casting and music composition. Metzstein also picked up his first Emmy nomination for directing the Season 3 premiere “Strange Games,” which opens the show’s acclaimed third season on the sun-drenched streets of Istanbul, featuring a 007-inspired boat-chase through the exotic Bosphorus Strait before the action moves back to Slough House when Lamb and team discover that one of their own has been taken hostage, setting up the season’s riveting high-stakes race against time.
“It was a deeply self-conscious and conscious decision to throw the audience to say, ‘look, we’re a proper spy film! Look at these glamorous people in this exotic location,” Metzstein explains about opening the show with a bang. “And then you get that huge come-down when it goes to the second scene, which is River and Catherine arguing about boxes that have taken over the office,” he laughs. “Istanbul is one of the great cities of the world. We had an unbelievably good time making that. And it was, how do we do that sort of ‘Bond’-ish opening using cars and boats and running and hitting and smashing things up,” he explains. “We thought, let’s show off! Let’s make something that you couldn’t do on a BBC budget. Let’s actually go the whole hog. It was incredibly good fun.”
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