Gary Oldman on Slow Horses, farting and the honours system

Oldman has not exactly been short of plaudits during a career lasting more than 40 years, in which he has played Sid Vicious, Lee Harvey Oswald, Dracula, Gotham City’s police commissioner Jim Gordon and even made a cameo as President Truman in Oppenheimer.

But for the first time in his career, he is part of what is becoming a long-running TV show. Apple TV+’s Slow Horses is about to start its fourth series and is a real genuine word of mouth hit.

Speaking down the line from Palm Springs, where he now lives, Gary Oldman shares how he describes the show to people who have yet to see it: “The sort of slightly shady, dirty side of espionage. It’s your PG Tips, Tescos version of it I guess.”

Slow Horses focuses on the agents who have been discarded or are in trouble with the British Secret Service, and have been left to rot at Slough House, an establishment run by Oldman’s Jackson Lamb, a character so shabby and dishevelled, that the actor has given a lot of thought to how he smells.

“He’s a whisky drinker, so obviously, that’s sort of coming out of the pores.

“It’s that stale booze and cigarettes and some B.O., a bit of underarm thrown in.”

Lamb’s trademark move is breaking wind. A lot of discussion goes into how many farts he should have each series, and what they should sound like. Season five does get off to a windy start.

“These are the conversations and email exchanges that you have with the director,” Oldman laughs.

“You know: ‘This one is on a leather chair, so it should be more robust’. We have these ridiculous conversations about the frequency.”

With chat like this, surely the knighthood is now secured.