{"id":10894,"date":"2025-08-20T05:44:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T05:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/10894\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T05:44:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T05:44:07","slug":"doug-urbanski-found-next-project-to-keep-gary-oldman-from-retiring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/10894\/","title":{"rendered":"Doug Urbanski Found Next Project to Keep Gary Oldman From Retiring"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSlow Horses<\/a>, as the show\u2019s executive producer Doug Urbanski is keen to say, is not your grandfather\u2019s spy show. The Apple TV+<\/a> hit \u2014 up for\u00a0five Emmys, including best drama series for its fourth season \u2014 takes the cloak-and-dagger espionage of a John le Carr\u00e9 thriller and squeezes it through the tea-stained filter of snarky British comedy (lead writer Will\u202fSmith cut his teeth on Armando Iannucci\u2019s caustic pre-Veep political satire The Thick\u00a0of\u00a0It).<\/p>\n

\n\tIn place of a debonair James Bond superspy, we have Jackson Lamb, the slovenly, flatulent remnant of a once-great MI5 agent. Played with shambolic brilliance by Gary Oldman<\/a>, Lamb oversees a team at Slough House, a shabby off-site dumping ground for disgraced and rejected agents.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe series is based on the novels by Mick Herron, with each book as one six-episode season. From an appropriately languid start \u2014 the first two seasons gathered critical acclaim but mostly flew under the radar \u2014 Slow Horses has steadily gained recognition. Season three, which scored nine Emmy nominations and one writing win for Smith, marked its official mainstream breakout.<\/p>\n

\n\tUrbanski spoke to THR about how applying old-school studio discipline to keep \u201cthe trains running on time and budget\u201d has kept the show \u2014 and everyone involved \u2014 on track, and how one perfectly timed fart helped redefine the modern spy drama.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat\u2019s the Slow Horses origin story?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tGary Oldman and I initially wanted to do a sequel to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy [the 2011 le Carr\u00e9 adaptation Urbanski produced starring Oldman]. But the le Carr\u00e9 estate didn\u2019t want Gary to play [the lead character George] Smiley again. Eventually, Gary said, \u201cCan\u2019t we find something for me with no prosthetics, no accent, no wig, where I can use my own accent \u2014 preferably in the spy genre?\u201d Soon after, his agent called asking whether I would consider a television series, and I\u202fsaid yes.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe shot Slow Horses during the pandemic, which was very odd. We couldn\u2019t travel freely, so I watched a lot of Columbo and Perry\u202fMason. Those shows are consistently good. They knew how to keep stories engaging with character and pace. That inspired how we approached Slow Horses. From the start, we wanted it to feel like a six-hour movie, not traditional episodic TV. We shoot it like one long movie and then break it into episodes.<\/p>\n

\n\tApple TV+ has confirmed there will be a season seven, but since you do two seasons back-to-back, should we assume season eight is also confirmed?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYou might think so. I couldn\u2019t possibly comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy has it resonated more than other spy genre entries?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWonderful source material helps, but it doesn\u2019t guarantee a good product. You need to get into the DNA of it. Mick Herron\u2019s books are irreverent but dark. It\u2019s a nearly impossible tonal balance \u2014 like Killing Eve did well for a couple seasons. The first thing we had to say was: This is not your grandfather\u2019s spy show. This is not James Bond, it\u2019s not John le Carr\u00e9. It\u2019s not Austin Powers, either. It\u2019s going to be its own thing. The key thing is, we\u2019re not making a spy show with characters thrown in. We\u2019re making a character study that happens to have thrills and chases. That shift in focus makes the audience fall in love with the characters. They\u2019re flawed. They drink; gamble; lose their temper. It resonates. It\u2019s human.<\/p>\n

\n\tWas Jackson Lamb\u2019s infamous character introduction in episode one, when he farts himself awake, always part of the show?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThat came later. We had about 28\u202fcuts of episode one, season one. Something was missing. I called [Apple TV+ Europe boss] Jay Hunt and said, \u201cIt\u2019s context.\u201d She agreed. I told Gary, and he said, \u201cI\u2019ve got the perfect thing: Lamb waking himself up with a fart.\u201d It was our way of telling viewers, \u201cThis is not your grandfather\u2019s spy show.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDo you feel a responsibility to keep the show going because Gary\u202fOldman has said he might retire after it ends?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI had a recent conversation with Gary. He asked, \u201cHow long do you think this will go?\u201d I told him, \u201cAs long as we can keep it good. If it ever starts getting stupid, we\u2019ll stop.\u201d But he has told me he would like to do a new show immediately after this one. We may have found something. If so, we\u2019d bring it to Apple first. But first, our job is to finish what we\u2019ve committed to.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine,\u00a0click here to subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Slow Horses, as the show\u2019s executive producer Doug Urbanski is keen to say, is not your grandfather\u2019s spy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268],"tags":[593,434,18,6135,117,10563,19,17,10564],"class_list":{"0":"post-10894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-apple-tv","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-emmy-awards","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-gary-oldman","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-slow-horses"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}