Premiering on Apple TV+ beginning December 2nd is the second season of the popular spy series ‘Slow Horses.’
The first season followed British MI5 agent River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), who after a botched mission is exiled to Slough House, which is nicknamed “Slow Horses” and is an administrative purgatory for service agents.
Cartwright and his fellow former agents now perform boring administrative tasks and work for the miserable Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), who expects everyone to quit out of frustration, but the team soon becomes entangled in a dangerous mission at London’s Regent’s Park.
The second season will revolve around the investigation of a retired Cold War era spy, who is found dead on a bus miles away from where he works or lives.
In addition to Lowden and Oldman, the cast also includes Kristin Scott Thomas, Saskia Reeves, Olivia Cooke, and Jonathan Pryce.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Gary Oldman and Saskia Reeves about their work on ‘Slow Horses’ season 2, the new plot, how Reeves prepares for her role, and how Catherine and Jackson’s relationship has changed since season one.
You can read our full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interviews with Oldman, Reeves, and Jack Lowden about ‘Slow Horses’ Season 2.
Moviefone: To begin with, can you both talk about what fans can expect from season 2 of ‘Slow Horses?’
Gary Oldman: Well, season two begins with a suspicious death, a Cold War era spy, retired ex-spy Dickie Bow is found on a bus miles away from where he works or lives. We are told that he has died from a heart attack.
Jackson had a relationship with Dickie back in the old days and is suspicious that he died, that it was natural causes and thinks that there’s something a little more mysterious to this death that meets the eye. He gathers his dysfunctional team to really start to investigate.
Saskia Reeves: He’s known to Catherine as well because they’re part of the same crew as it were years ago. Dickie has a reputation, a very bad reputation. So, there’s all sorts of little clues that bring these two characters together.
It’s almost like they can’t not get involved, isn’t it? Sometimes when I’m working on this story, I often imagine that we’re not spies, we’re actors. So, it’d be like an actor you worked with in Liverpool 30 years ago or something.
GA: When he mysteriously dies you think, “Oh no, there’s something up,” and you want to find out.
SR: And he got really bad reviews when in fact he was actually quite a good actor. So, I do synonyms. I think, oh, how can I get closer to this material? So, it’s like Jackson and Catherine share a knowledge of him and the history and everything. Then even more history comes up.
GA: Mind you though, there’s probably a few actors that would come up from the old days and you would say, “Well, okay.”
MF: Finally, Saskia can you talk about how Catherine and Jackson’s relationship has changed since the first season?
SR: I mean there’s a definite undertone in the backstory and it actually exists through quite a few of the books written by Mick Herron, and is rumbling in the background in the series, which is great to have as you build the story and the characters. She takes the opportunity to be helpful and get involved, which is great fun to do.
If anyone deserves an Oscar it’s 
Today, you might be skittish at the prospect of Harrison Ford in the cockpit of a 747, but 20 years ago this week, on July 25, 1997, we all felt reassured to have Ford not only in command of “Air Force One,” but also serving as the President of the United States.
1. How realistic is the movie’s version of the president’s plane? Much of it came from the educated guesses of screenwriter 
3. In addition to the rented 747 that played the title aircraft, Columbia Pictures paid for the use of several Air Force planes, along with their pilots.
5. Marlowe never did get White House approval for his scenario suggesting that it wouldn’t be all that hard for hijackers to take control of the president’s plane. But Ford did get permission from Clinton to tour the real Air Force One, along with Petersen and the film’s cinematographer and production designer. So at least they got the decor right.
7. Like his character, Ford knows a thing or two about piloting planes. But could he actually fly the 747 used in the film? Asked that question by EW, he recalled 
9. To make the zipline sequence look real, the filmmakers had an MC-130 transport plane fly 4,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean, trailing a cable. The 747 at the other end would be added by computers in post-production. 
11. During their climatic confrontation in the communications center of the plane, Ford told Oldman to really slap and hit him. So, yup, that’s Oldman really beating up Indiana Jones.
13. 
Twenty years after the release of “
1. Besson (above) said he started writing the screenplay when he was 16, creating the vivid fantasy universes to combat the boredom he experienced living in rural France. But it didn’t reach the screen until he was 38 years old; by that time, he felt he was old enough to actually have something to say about life.
3. Ultimately, Besson thought he’d have to settle for a cheaper leading man, but in a chance conversation with Willis, the actor said that if he liked the script, he’d figure out a way to make the money work. “Sometimes I just do it because they’re just fun,” he said of his movie role choices in 1997, “and this was a real fun movie to make.” He’d end up signing on for a reduced salary up front and a percentage of the profits.
4. Oldman, who’d played the villain in “The Professional,” took the bad guy role of Zorg as a favor to Besson, who’d helped finance Oldman’s directing debut, “
6. “Fifth Element” would relaunch the future “
7. Even so, the martial arts novice couldn’t manage some of the high kicks required of her character. They were accomplished via artful editing and an artificial leg operated from just outside the frame.
9. Chris Tucker (still best known at the time for his scene-stealing “
13. Besson enlisted influential French comic book artists Jean Giraud (a.k.a. Moebius) and Jean-Claude Mézières to design his futuristic universe. Willis’ flying taxi was inspired by the images of a similar vehicle in Mézières’ title “The Circles of Power.”
16. Besson cast his wife, 
18. The astonishment on everyone’s faces when Plavalaguna appears was real. Besson had isolated his wife from the cast so that no one would know what the Diva was supposed to look like until they saw her in character as the blue-skinned alien.
20. “The Fifth Element” cost a reported $90 million to produce, the costliest film made up to that point by a non-American production company (in this case, the French studio Gaumont). It earned back $264 million worldwide, $200 million of which came from moviegoers outside North America. It held the record as the most globally successful French-produced movie until “The Intouchables” in 2011.
22. As sophisticated as the visual effects seemed at the time, Besson found them frustratingly primitive. Today’s digital effects would have made shooting “Fifth Element” much easier, he said recently. He’s currently finishing for July release the sci-fi epic “