Skip to content 
Editor’s Note: The interview below contains spoilers for Season 6 Episode 5 of Slow Horses.
With only one episode left, slow speech There’s still a lot left unresolved in Season 6, and there’s still more than one threat facing MI5’s biggest misfits. Now most of the teams are Diana Taverner’s team (Kristin Scott Thomas) Cottage, Frank Harkness (Hugo Weaving) and his ill-equipped companions are soon approaching, while the Cartwright River (Jack Lowden) and Sid Baker (Olivia Cooke) Can we get one step closer to admitting our real feelings? But one of the characters is still reeling from a shocking discovery in the season premiere, and we don’t really have any time to process it. What would Catherine Standish do?Saskia Reeves) Now she is Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) did that to her old boss. So will Slough House’s longest-serving member ever be the same again?
Before Episode 5, “Sayonara,” Collider spoke with Reeves about the moment that literally brought Catherine Standish to her knees (and why she wanted to do her own stunt in the scene in question), whether Lamb’s betrayal will throw Standish off the wagon, and whether these two characters will ever be the same again after that revelation.
COLLIDER: There’s a lot of really great, emotionally significant stuff for Catherine Standish this season. But I wanted to start with a scene from the first episode. It’s a scene where River is paying tribute to her grandfather and Lamb is giggling in his seat. What was your most memorable experience filming that scene in the church?
SASKIA REEVES: Well, that’s really touching. While filming, I thought about how great Jack was. [Lowden] I did. After reading that page and hearing what he did, I thought, ‘Oh, that’s really good.’ Gary [Oldman] And I played around with what I would actually say to him.So I think we were pretty focused on Katherine and Jackson and what kind of story we were going to tell.
But after doing it the third, fourth, or fifth time, it doesn’t feel as fun as you can imagine. so, I think it was a really touching scene rather than a funny one.. And Jackson is absolutely terrible. He knows exactly what’s going on. He knows exactly what’s going on, and yet he’s undermining it. I think the saying, “Try acting like a human being for once” is exactly right.
Saskia Reeves wanted to do her own stunts in the ‘Slow Horses’ Season 6 premiere.
“When you were in that moment, I did it all because it seemed so important to me.”
Outside the church there are more serious moments. This is after Tavener made a very off-the-cuff remark about Charles Partner in her hearing. You can tell by Catherine’s reaction that she literally falls over. Was there any discussion about how physically she would react? Did you film a different version of that scene?
REEVES: That was a conversation we had as we were developing the script together. Once the script was released to the actors. I had a conversation with the director. [Adam Randall]And I said, “This information is like a punch in the stomach. If I can do it, what if she…?” And actually, I went to a funeral not long before filming this scene, and I was literally standing around the area where the coffin would be placed. There were other tombstones and some bumpy grass, and I thought, ‘I can’t believe what I just heard. If I just step back, I’m going to fall.’ It was really important to me to be able to physically express that impact by actually literally falling.
Plus that terrible humiliation. If you fall, it will be so embarrassing when you become an adult, and that person will be upset too. And I was like, “No, no, I’m fine.” Everything is going horribly wrong for her. I wanted it to be as uncomfortable, awkward, and confusing as possible.Than a close-up of Catherine’s face. Do you know what I mean? Adam agreed with me, so we thought about it.
At some point, Adam thought he might step back and trip over someone’s wheelchair or something. But actually, the shoes I was wearing made it pretty easy to pretend to be off balance. I did all the falls myself, and they kept saying, “We can use a stunt double.” When you were in that moment, it seemed so important to me that I did everything. So I was very happy with it. He shot it in many different ways, and I remember complaining to him later, “But Adam, there are too many angles. Couldn’t you have seen more?” But I guess it’s just me wanting to show off my stunt skills.
Do you think Tavener’s public, off-the-cuff jokes were crueler to Catherine? Or are we hearing it from Tavener and not Lamb? Or is it both?
REEVES: All it took was hearing a secret, but Lamb didn’t have the courage to tell it himself. That will probably come out a little later. You’re shocked to realize, “Oh, it was Lamb who shot him. He didn’t commit suicide.” And he said, “Wow, he was that quiet.”
But she works for service. They have all done terrible things. They all know how to deceive, cunning and slip. Ultimately, it’s something she’ll have to suck up. Well, actually it’s a challenge to her sobriety. She almost gets drunk more than once, and each time she’s saved by something different and I love it. I like that we don’t yet know if she will. It’s so close. She’s so close but still won’t fall off the wagon.
I wanted to ask you about the scene where Catherine enters the wine shop and what you wanted to convey about her state of mind. We know she’s just taken a huge hit, and it almost feels like we’re seeing how she’s giving right into her biggest temptation and how she can get back to drinking without actually having to drink.
Reeves: I don’t know. I don’t think there’s one linear way to think about it. I think addiction is very complicated. The brain says all kinds of things. I think with Catherine, a few years ago, when she was drinking… definitely when I was preparing the character, it occurred to me that she was someone who didn’t seem very outgoing or confident on the outside. She is very, very smart. She didn’t go to the right college. I think she had a lot of problems at home. I think one of her parents was an alcoholic. I think her father probably wanted a boy. I invented all sorts of things for her to help her understand the insecurities of someone who was clearly talented.. Self-destruction. There are many, many reasons.
I think the drink for Catherine was to take her out of herself to the point of losing her mind. And as Lamb keeps reminding her, she will definitely be under the truck. She doesn’t remember the passion or madness of that night. And I think there’s a part of Catherine that is really wild or wants to be, so thinking about alcohol is like realizing ‘I have a secret weapon.’ As the story progresses, we are in danger, and I always felt like there was a terrorist inside her. “Do you think this is bad? Just wait until I drink.” So there is an element of danger and excitement. Plus, people don’t even know who she is. It’s like, “You don’t know what I’m like when I’m drinking. Just wait.” That feeling of “you guys underestimate me”. So it really gave me something to play with.
And the idea that it’s something lovely and exciting and fun and crazy. Of course, she will never be normal because she is an addict. You’ll never wake up with a hangover and say, “I’m not going to drink for a few days. That was a bit too much.” no, Once she starts it will be very difficult to stopThis is why people who participate in the program realize they are alcoholics, which usually means they can never drink again.
And she has to wake up every day and decide not to drink.
Reeves: Exactly. huh.
Saskia Reeves reveals Standish’s true feelings about another slow horse.
“She is trying to guide everyone in the best way possible, but again, a lot of the time she gets ignored…”
When the Slow Horses discover that assassins are being sent to target not only their current members, but also former members of Slough House, Lamb enlists Catherine and Shirley to round up some of their old allies, and we have a truly fantastic subplot with Aimee. [Ffion Edwards]Joanna [Scanlan]And Rosalind [Eleazar]. In many ways, it feels like Catherine has to rally these women together when Louisa and Shirley fight, or when Moira does something like yelling in the middle of the pharmacy.
REEVES: Moira is something completely different. When we were talking about the chances between the four of them, I remember saying that Moira and Catherine would never be friends. They are just poles apart. But the thing is, when it comes to women over a certain age who don’t have kids, don’t have a partner, and dedicate their lives to their work, there’s a tendency to group them together, and they don’t. They are very, very different animals.. So it was fun. If you think about it in that respect, it was really good.
Catherine spends a lot of time caring for Louisa and Shirley. Ros and Aimee, I love what those two are doing with those characters. I don’t think Catherine believes she has real agency in any way shape or form. She is trying to guide everyone in the best way possible and is once again ignored, a situation she has become accustomed to, but she refuses to give up.
How would you describe Catherine’s feelings for Lamb, at least by the end of the season? They had a phone conversation where she said she still wanted to shove his head in promiscuously, but then they slipped back into that old tête-à-tête.
REEVES: Forgiveness, frustration. She is a realist. I think I was trying to say this at the beginning of the interview. They work for MI5. Terrible things happen, people do terrible things, and it’s the system that Catherine hates. I think it was difficult because I couldn’t tell Ram exactly what I wanted to say.. We played with it for a while. What would she say?
But actually, I really like the fact that in the end she can’t really say what she wants to say and it gets internalized, that feeling of frustration and anger and betrayal. But she knows he’s loyal, and she knows he was. That’s because he was made that way, Charles Partner was a traitor and it was Cartwright who made him that way. I think Lamb said the guy was made to do unconscionable things. And in the end You have to forgive and move on, ’cause that’s the job.
new episode of slow speech The Season 6 premiere begins Wednesday on Apple TV.