{"id":941223,"date":"2026-10-21T20:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T20:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/941223\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T20:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T20:30:19","slug":"slow-horses-season-6-finale-interview-with-ruth-bradley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/941223\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Slow Horses’ Season 6 Finale Interview With Ruth Bradley"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[This story contains MAJOR spoilers from the season six finale of Slow Horses<\/a>, \u201cJudgment Day.\u201d]<\/p>\n

\n\tBefore Ruth Bradley<\/a> filmed any episodes of Apple TV<\/a>\u2019s Slow Horses, she read all the books in the Mick Herron series that had been published to that point. That is to say, she already knew exactly how much things would change for her character, Emma Flyte, who was introduced in season four as the first female head of MI5\u2019s aggressive security task force, the Dogs.<\/p>\n

\n\tKnowing where things were going ahead of time helped her decide to \u201clean into a superiority that Flyte would have over the Horses\u201d in her first season. She adds, \u201cIt just meant that there was so much further to fall, which is fun to watch, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut there were also drawbacks, mainly a fear of accidentally spoiling certain events that occur in season six. Now that the season finale has finally dropped, however, Bradley tells The Hollywood Reporter she\u2019s relieved to no longer have to speak in code.<\/p>\n

\n\tBelow, she dishes on the just-released season, including the evolving \u201cmother-daughter\u201d dynamic between Flyte and MI5 boss Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas), their \u201cexpletive-laden\u201d midseason confrontation and the climactic events of episode six.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tYour character is the head of the Dogs, which always seemed to be a very aggressive, male-dominated specialty. What interested you about playing a woman in that type of role?<\/p>\n

\n\tI guess what interested me would be what interested Flyte, that this is a male-dominated world. She\u2019s come from the Met [London\u2019s Metropolitan Police], which is also pretty male-dominant, and she\u2019s the trailblazer. She\u2019s going to be the first woman in this position, as head of the Dogs, and she\u2019s going to change it for women coming up behind her, she\u2019s going to set a precedent, and in season four, she feels that Taverner has her back. She thinks she\u2019s been hand-picked by Taverner, which turns out to absolutely not be the case. When she arrives in season four, she\u2019s like, \u201cWow, maybe when I grow up, I can be like Taverner.\u201d Her career is on this massive upward trajectory, which turns out to absolutely not be the case.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe does deserve to be on that trajectory; she\u2019s an extremely competent person. In the earlier seasons she didn\u2019t really seem to care for the Slow Horses. Is that because she\u2019s so competent and they\u2019re not necessarily?<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat was so great is that I knew what was going to happen because of books four, five and six. So I could really play into and lean into a superiority that Flyte would have over the Horses. She\u2019s thinking, \u201cThese are not the cool kids. I don\u2019t want to be associated with these guys. They\u2019re a joke, and I\u2019m so much better than them.\u201d So it just meant that there was so much further to fall, which is fun to watch, isn\u2019t it? I thought the further I could push that, the better. And then by season five, she\u2019s a little bit more wary of them.<\/p>\n

\n\tEarly on in this season, you have a lot of good scenes with Kristin Scott Thomas where Taverner has been doing some things that seem out of character, like talking to the media, and you\u2019re questioning, \u201cAre you OK? Do you need some help?\u201d And then it evolves to Flyte calling her out. Were those scenes fun to play?<\/p>\n

\n\tSo fun to play. Some of that dialogue is lifted straight out of the book, like, \u201cWith a lack of respect, fuck you and fuck your job.\u201d That is literally in Mick Herron\u2019s book, and it really, to me, felt like the pinnacle of this kind of subconscious mother-daughter thing in the dynamic between Flyte and Taverner, so that felt like the culmination of that storyline, being caring and taking care of her, but then a total flip when she realizes what she\u2019s going to do to her.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen you think of it that way, it\u2019s even more of a betrayal when Taverner throws her in Slough House.<\/p>\n

\n\tI think Flyte would have preferred to be fired, because being sent to Slough House is such a personal slight, when Taverner has made no bones about how ridiculous she thinks they all are, and she thinks that\u2019s all you\u2019re worth. I think it really hurts Flyte as well, as opposed to just being terrible, it\u2019s also really, deeply hurtful that she\u2019s doing this to her and shocking, which is why Flyte\u2019s response is so expletive-laden.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd when she has that response, you wonder: Is she just going to quit? But when the Slow Horses show up at her door, she does decide to help them.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe helps them, but that\u2019s such an interesting point, because she never officially joins the Slow Horses. It\u2019s just the night she\u2019s been fired and she\u2019s laying into her whiskey. She\u2019s not expecting them to call around, so who knows what she would have done had she made it to Monday morning?<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRuth Bradley as Emma Flyte in Slow Horses season six. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Apple<\/p>\n

\n\tEventually they all make it to the safe house, and that setting looked so beautiful. Was it really as remote and idyllic as it looked on the screen?<\/p>\n

\n\tTotally amazing, that whole sequence. We were like a school class on tour. We were in this beautiful, idyllic part of Suffolk, on the coast in England, and when we\u2019d wrap, we\u2019d go for walks in the sunset and we\u2019d go for dinner in each of those barns. It was just a gorgeous place to be. One weekend in the middle of it, we all flew to L.A. for the Actor Awards, and it was really kind of wild. We got on the plane right after wrap and then we went straight back to work on Monday morning. It was great.<\/p>\n

\n\tAll the glamorous things about acting at once.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd the crew were like, \u201cHave a good time! See you next week!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tYou also have some other upcoming projects. Have they been a change of pace from Slow Horses?<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, they\u2019ve all been films, which has been really exciting. An amazing, beautiful film called Walk the Blue Fields, which is based on a Claire Keegan book, with Emily Blunt and Andrew Scott and another gorgeous bunch of actors. That was really gorgeous. John Crowley directed it, and it\u2019s a really tiny love story, really amazing. He\u2019s an incredible director.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd then this great film called Bender in the summer, with Bill Burr and Chris O\u2019Dowd, and that\u2019s like a comedy, which is totally the other side. And this thing I\u2019m shooting now, which I don\u2019t know if I can talk about it yet, but it\u2019s very art house and totally different for me. It\u2019s been really exciting, but yeah, totally different characters to Flyte, which is how I like it.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s probably the exciting thing about being an actor, is getting to play all these different types of things.<\/p>\n

\n\tTotally, that\u2019s the dream. Be big or go home. They\u2019re completely opposite to each other, so it\u2019s great.<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019ve seen some other interviews where you said Gary Oldman was one of the reasons you wanted to be an actor and that was one of the most exciting things about joining Slow Horses. Did you learn anything specific from being on set with him?<\/p>\n

\n\tIf I look at my career, even what I was just saying about those next films, I\u2019m always wondering, how can I go completely to the other end of humanity in this next character, Completely change everything? That is definitely based on watching Gary\u2019s career as a kid, and Peter Sellers, these actors who were completely different in different things, so professionally I\u2019ve definitely kept that in mind.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut I think he\u2019s so kind, and he knows every member of the crew\u2019s name. He knows everything about their family and life, and he treats everybody with the utmost respect, and he knows all his lines and he\u2019s worked out everything. He\u2019s open and generous as an actor, so I think that [is what I learned]: There\u2019s no reason to be anything other than that, even if you happen to be one of the greatest living actors on earth, you can still be kind.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\t(Writer\u2019s note: MAJOR spoilers for the season finale start here.)<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRuth Bradley in the season six finale of Slow Horses.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Apple<\/p>\n

\n\tYou mentioned that you already knew from the books that your character was going to die, so that wasn\u2019t a surprise, right?<\/p>\n

\n\tI knew before I shot any frame of season four that this was going to happen. It was never a surprise.<\/p>\n

\n\tBefore Flyte gets shot, she does get to be kind of a badass. (She runs across the beach and shoots and kills a henchman to save three of the others before being shot in the back.) Was there a lot of preparation that went into that lead-up?<\/p>\n

\n\tNot really, because by the end of six we\u2019d done a lot of stunt work with [stunt coordinator] Paul [Kennington] and gun work, so I was pretty comfortable with all that. And [director] Adam [Randall]\u2019s great with, like, \u201cLet\u2019s just try this,\u201d so I knew that was the case. I had been running a lot. I did a half marathon before, because I was like, \u201cI\u2019d better be in shape for this stuff.\u201d I was sprinting on a beach.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat was great, all the stuff beforehand. What\u2019s great about the show is all the plot happens through the characters. When there\u2019s danger, Flyte\u2019s like, \u201cI\u2019ll go, don\u2019t worry,\u201d even though she knows it\u2019s crazy, but [the Slow Horses] can\u2019t go. They\u2019ll be killed. So when she hears these gunshots when she\u2019s in the long grass, her instinct is just to go and save them \u2014 even though there might be people around, she\u2019s in full view, she\u2019s not sneaking, she\u2019s sprinting on an empty beach. Her instinct as a human is to save people who need to be saved. So it\u2019s great that she gets to do that before \u2026<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd that adds to the tragedy, because she is the person who\u2019s most equipped to deal with this.<\/p>\n

\n\tTotally, and it is a pretty dirty move to shoot someone in the back, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

\n\tDo you remember anything in particular about filming the part where Harkness (Hugo Weaving) shoots her?<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, it was kind of huge. I\u2019ve never played the moment of death before, actually. I\u2019ve played after and before, but that actual moment isn\u2019t really something you can plan or rehearse for, because it\u2019s going to happen to us all at some stage. It was really big and moving, and we didn\u2019t really rehearse it. We didn\u2019t really talk about it. We discussed the moves, like, \u201cI\u2019ll go over on this shoulder because that\u2019s where she\u2019ll be shot, I\u2019ll crawl back on my hand.\u201d Adam was like, \u201cMaybe you throw the gun at him,\u201d I said, \u201cYeah, sure, I\u2019ll throw the gun at him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere was a line in the stage directions, \u201cShe realizes this is her final moment,\u201d but that was just on the page, we didn\u2019t talk about it. We just shot it. I think it\u2019s one of those things. Luckily, Adam is such a brilliant director. I wouldn\u2019t want to over-shoot those things, because it\u2019s going to happen to us and we don\u2019t know what it\u2019s going to feel like, so you\u2019re better off just jumping off and seeing what happens.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt definitely came across that she knows this is it, and there\u2019s nothing else she can do. And thinking back to the confrontation that she had with Taverner, if I were Taverner I would feel pretty guilty about Flyte dying in that circumstance. But do you think that she will?<\/p>\n

\n\tI hope so. (Laughs.) I don\u2019t know, after all the stuff that went on with Sid Baker [Olivia Cooke], I don\u2019t know if she would feel remorse about Flyte dying, because she\u2019s done some pretty awful things to other agents. And just because Flyte has held her in such high regard and such high esteem, I don\u2019t ever think it was reciprocated, which is what\u2019s so great. (Laughs.) I don\u2019t know, you\u2019d have to ask Kristin, but I don\u2019t think Taverner would give her a second thought.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s so sad.<\/p>\n

\n\t(Laughs.)<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd it\u2019s probably true. I was going to ask if it was hard to keep it a secret since you film so far in advance, but you\u2019ve really known since the beginning.<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, it has been hard. Also, I\u2019m shooting something right now and they\u2019ve dyed my hair dark, but purposely everything else I\u2019ve worked since, I\u2019m purposely like, \u201cLet\u2019s keep it blonde,\u201d because I didn\u2019t want to let the cat out of the bag since we shoot so many seasons back-to-back. People would ask me, \u201cAre you still doing Slow Horses?\u201d and I\u2019d be like, \u201cIt\u2019s still going,\u201d you know, speaking in code. So I\u2019m glad that I can give that up now.<\/p>\n

\n\tIs there anything else you wanted to say about Flyte, as you officially say goodbye to her?<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m so sad she\u2019s gone! It\u2019s strange to be talking about it because I haven\u2019t really spoken about it ever because we\u2019ve been keeping it under wraps. But I\u2019ve totally fallen in love with her over the course of it. Something about being able to lean into how haughty and entitled she was in season four, and then how vulnerable and off kilter she was in five, and then being able to be her genuine self in six, feels like a real life journey, and I fell in love with her over the course of it.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe definitely evolves and grows, and it\u2019s a fun thing to watch.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s like real people, we all do.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tSlow Horses season six is available on Apple TV. For more THR coverage of the show, see our interview with Christopher Chung (Roddy Ho) <\/a>and season six director Adam Randall<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[This story contains MAJOR spoilers from the season six finale of Slow Horses, \u201cJudgment Day.\u201d] Before Ruth Bradley…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":941224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[15915,49,48,75,322377,49741,348],"class_list":["post-941223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-apple-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-ruth-bradley","tag-slow-horses","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=941223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/941224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}