SPOILER ALERT: The following article contains plot details for “Judgment Day,” the Season 6 finale of “Slow Horses,” now streaming on Apple TV.
“Hello, river.”
Those two fateful words heralded Olivia Cooke’s return to “Slow Horses” after a four-season absence from the Apple TV spy series. Cooke’s MI5 agent Sidonie Baker made a brief but memorable appearance in season 1, forging affectionate chemistry with incompetent spy River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) before dying from a gunshot wound to the head – or so River thinks.
Sid’s resurrection wasn’t a complete surprise to “Slow Horses” fans: the character returns in author Mick Herron’s eponymous novels, and Apple made no secret of his storyline during advance promotion for season 6, which wrapped up this week. But enough has changed since Cooke’s first stint on the show to make his reintegration into the ensemble an event in itself. First, “Slow Horses” itself became a hit, with a string of Emmy nominations (plus a few wins) and an audience eager to show it off; Meanwhile, Cooke’s career took off thanks to a leading role in the fantasy epic “House of the Dragon.”
That star power is on full display throughout Season 6, which sees Sid and River on the run from Russian sleeper agents during one incredibly stressful night. The icy head of MI5, Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas) – who once placed her favorite mentee Sid in Slough House, a sort of purgatory for screwed up agents, like her eyes and ears – used Sid’s identity as cover for an unofficial assassination on Russian soil, and now the Kremlin wants revenge. All the Slow Horses (a not-so-affectionate nickname for Slough House employees), past and present, are targeted, and Sid goes to River for help.
The couple’s winding road from River’s late grandfather’s country house to Diana’s beach retreat, which Slough House manager Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) brazenly appropriates as a safe house, is winding. Sid and River pass through a barn, an arcade, and finally an airstrip where Sid is almost shipped to Russia as an unwitting sacrifice en route to a long-awaited first kiss. This being “Slow Horses,” however, their triumph is short-lived: River helps Sid escape and almost finds her at her grandfather’s house, but collapses from an apparent poisoning in the kitchen while showering upstairs in the season’s final moments.
“River kept it going, in a sense,” Cooke says now of the star-crossed lovers. Talk with Variety from the UK, the actor shared what it was like to jump back into the deep end with over a month of nighttime filming, from an unlikely injury to working with Lowden.
Courtesy of Apple TV
Your character comes back in the books, but I’m sure when we first filmed it wasn’t certain we’d get to this point. Did you know there was a chance you could come back?
We filmed season 1 towards the end of 2020. It was one of the first projects to return after confinement. I don’t know if the book had already been released where I returned, but there were rumors of it. I don’t know. It was such an uncertain time, and it was also the first series. It just felt like an eon ago. Who would have thought it would last this long?
But they kept me up to date with everything that was happening story-wise over the years. I admire from afar and bide my time. I was getting messages from Jack like, “You’re coming back!” » and I say to myself: “Fantastic, when?” And no one could really give me a straight answer. I remember seeing Saskia (Reeves), who plays Standish, at the theater, and she was like, “Are you coming back?” And I was like, “I’d love to.” I just don’t know. I don’t have clear answers. We were all in a bit of a cloud of mystery.
During that time, what was it like for you to watch this show that you were once a part of, but haven’t been a part of for a while?
Really funny, but tinged with jealousy. Because I lived it, you know? Even though we were all masked and socially distanced from each other and the crew when we weren’t in scenes, it was such a fun and enchanted environment that I desperately wanted to return to. And it’s so palpable – watching seasons 2, 3, 4, 5 – how much fun everyone is having on set. It actually glows through the screen. So it’s still bittersweet. I love watching them and I love seeing how good all my friends are, but I’m also incredibly jealous that they’re all having fun without me.
I guess as an actor, having to return to a character that you left behind is a challenge. Have you done any work or preparation to take over this role?
I had to remember how I spoke, what accent I did. I had to come back with that. But also, it was pretty cool, because Sid comes back very jaded. In the meantime, she and River have grown mentally. They were estranged from each other and the events leading up to Sid’s disappearance were truly traumatic. So I found it a little difficult not to honor the more jovial, carefree version of Sid that we saw in the first season.
We don’t get a lot of detail about what the last three years have been like for Sid, because there’s a lot happening in the present. Do you have your own idea of this story?
I asked Adam (Randall), the director, a lot about that. We thought she was in a rehabilitation center kept secret by MI5. It’s for ex-spies, ex-Joes, and she had to relearn how to walk and talk, basically. It has been an incredibly lonely process that has, I think, cauterized a part of her, somewhere indescribable. We were thinking perhaps of Cumbria, if you know it. A bit like Vermont in England: very green, but you can get lost in the landscape. I think it’s been a very long road of healing, but also of introspection for her.
You mentioned FOMO earlier, so I’m also interested in what it’s been like for you to actually get back on set. I’m sure the non-COVID version of the show is different.
Well, it was pretty much the same band, and it’s also largely the same band that does “House the Dragon” as well. Like off-season with “Slow Horses,” there will be people doing dailies and “House the Dragon” things and vice versa. So I know everyone very well. It was really lovely. It’s like the best high school reunion possible. Like you go to high school and everyone is your friend, which I don’t think is a reality for anyone. It was really joyful, even though we shot it right before the December holidays, in the middle of winter, all night for five weeks, because they cut all my stuff.
Courtesy of Apple TV
I was going to ask about that too – the nocturnal nature of it.
I rather loved it. Adam has this energy about him that sometimes feels like he’s on the run, which I love. And if a particular stunt isn’t working, or when we get on set and the equipment doesn’t quite match how the set works, he says, “All right, let’s figure it out. Let’s improvise.” It’s also really nice for me as an actor, because I feel like there’s a real energy there. I felt like we were doing an independent film for five weeks, because the majority of my films were just with Jack and Adam.
Your storyline this season is almost entirely two-handed with Jack. What is he like as a collaborator?
He’s my favorite type of man, he’s a very stupid man. It’s wonderful to play with him, because he just throws you a curveball and then you try to catch it. It makes me feel like I’m expanding my mind in a way that I’m not used to doing this work. And it’s so much fun! He wears it very lightly. He’s such a good actor. He’s very funny and doesn’t take it too seriously either. Which I love, because sometimes with other male actors, they take it very seriously.
In addition to the night shoots, there is a lot of action in the series. Were there any particularly delicate sequences?
There was, but the only thing that really made me suffer was just running. There are a lot of scenes where I’m running alongside Jack, who’s twice as tall as me, and my 5’9″ ass is desperately trying to keep up. It was around 2am and we were being chased by a Land Rover. You stretch, you try to warm up, but I think I was a little static for too long, and we left and I just felt both thighs go instant. I pulled both of my quadriceps muscles really badly. For two weeks I limped. Right after a race! But then I thought, “When was the last time I was chased?” Since I was 12!
You need to ask your contacts to reach out to Tom Cruise’s contacts and be like, “How can I get on screen?”
Literally! Climbing fences, shooting, being in the back of a moving truck while all these fire and gas canisters are exploding – but just running really, really got me going.
I was curious about the interlude in the barn. I can’t imagine staying in a barn full of smelly livestock for hours.
The problem is, there’s really nothing you can do about it. You just have total acceptance after 20 minutes and you get used to it. But we were moving among a lot of cows, which was actually quite scary. They’re really big and they can kick! I just remembered old horror stories about people being killed by a stampede of cows while crossing a field, and I was like, “I’m so close to them!” But it was good…
Gn entert
