Is ‘Slow Horses’ Gary Oldman’s most important performance?
Over the course of a career that dates back over 40 years, Gary Oldman has been offering constant reminders that he’s more than lived up to the promise he showed from the very beginning when he was singled out as having the potential to be remembered as one of his generation’s best actors.
It’s a lot of hype and expectation to place on the shoulders of any up-and-coming performer, but Oldman’s range and versatility ensured he handily matched the billing. Whether he’s lending support or playing the lead, at the very least, he guarantees a solid performance.
That being said, the modern perception of Oldman is that of an actor best known for moments. Think of his most celebrated, well-known or popular work, and more often than not, it’s a single scene, soundbite, or character quirk that comes to mind at the expense of his overall contributions.
He was in tremendous form as the deranged Norman Stansfield in Luc Besson’s Leon: The Professional, but he lurked on the fringes of the story. Sure, he stole every scene he was in with effortless ease, but it’s a showcase defined by individual bursts of brilliance rather than a pivotal ongoing contribution to the story.
The same can be said of True Romance‘s Drexl Spivey, Hannibal‘s Mason Verger, the Dark Knight trilogy’s Jim Gordon, Harry Potter‘s Sirius Black, Oppenheimer‘s Harry Truman, Air Force One‘s Ivan Korshunov, The Fifth Element‘s Zorg, and even Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. He’s great in every single one of those films, but the characters exist from moment to moment instead of being the driving force that informs every subplot, principal character, or major story development.
There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, but even in his Academy Award-winning turn as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, it’s hard to shake the idea that the audience is watching anything other than Gary Oldman buried under prosthetics making a transparent play to win himself an Oscar. A cynical viewpoint, perhaps, but not an entirely unwarranted one.
With that in mind, Slow Horses protagonist Jackson Lamb might well be the most important performance of Oldman’s entire professional life. The bedraggled character doesn’t require any makeup, performative tics, or idiosyncracies; it’s merely an actor fully investing in a three-dimensional, well-rounded, and eminently complex character he’s been given the opportunity to luxuriate in longer than any other.
Prior to the show’s premiere in October 2022, Oldman’s longest association with television was a four-episode stint on Morgan’s Boy back in 1984. Slow Horses, meanwhile, has been renewed through to at least a fifth season, which would take him up to 30 episodes. Not only that, but the star is even contemplating retirement once the Lamb has been fully cooked.
“I’d be very happy and honoured and privileged to go out as Jackson Lamb and then hang it up,” he told the Times. Clearly, it’s a character that means a great deal to him, but in the grand scheme of things, the part means just as much to Oldman’s entire career as it does to his current contemplations on when to bow out.
A bumbling ode to mid-level espionage, it’s the longest Oldman has ever played a role, and it’s evidently one he’s willing to inhabit until he calls it a day. Beyond that, though, Slow Horses gives a performer most famed in recent years for their moment-to-moment bursts of bravura something substantial to sink their teeth into, making it an undeniably important part of his overall onscreen existence.
