Gary Oldman has revealed he told Christopher Nolan that he considered his commitment to Slow Horses as more important than his appearance in Oppenheimer.
The fourth season of the Apple TV+ spy drama arrived this week, with the first two episodes available to stream now. Oldman’s lead character of Jackson Lamb is back, and now the actor has said that his devotion to the role came at no expense – not even one of the biggest films of 2023.
Oldman portrayed the US President Harry S. Truman in Nolan’s blockbuster, and in a new interview with the Wall Street Journal Magazine, he disclosed the conversation he had with the director before he accepted the role.
“I’m tethered to [Slow Horses], even when I’ve got a six-month break,” he said. “And it dictates if I do anything else.”
“I did a day on Oppenheimer. I said to Chris Nolan, ‘I would love to come and do it, but I’m going to have to wear a prosthetic cap and a wig and I can’t cut my hair. So if you can deal with that, then I’d love to come and do it. And if you don’t want wigs, then you have to get someone else to do it.’ Lamb is never far away in that sense.”
Oldman had already worked with Nolan on the Dark Knight trilogy, playing the role of Lt. Jim Gordon.
Oppenheimer went on to be the biggest winner at the Oscars and the BAFTAs this year. In a five-star review of the film, NME wrote: “Not just the definitive account of the man behind the atom bomb, Oppenheimer is a monumental achievement in grown-up filmmaking.”
“For years, Nolan has been perfecting the art of the serious blockbuster – crafting smart, finely-tuned multiplex epics that demand attention; that can’t be watched anywhere other than in a cinema, uninterrupted, without distractions. But this, somehow, feels bigger.”
Slow Horses is based on the Slough House series of novels by Mick Herron and revolves around a group of British intelligence officers who have been demoted after having made significant mistakes. Oldman’s Jackson Lamb is the head of Slough House, and the show also stars Kristin Scott Thomas, Jack Lowden and Jonathan Pryce.
In a five-star review of season three of the show, NME wrote: “The sad thing about Slow Horses is how few people are watching it on Apple TV+ in the UK. Far fewer are subscribed versus the other streaming giants. However, this season could change all that as the buzz around the show becomes impossible to ignore: it’s the best show on TV right now.”
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