{"id":622217,"date":"2026-09-12T07:32:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T07:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/622217\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T07:32:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T07:32:18","slug":"slow-horses-actor-ruth-bradley-on-handling-rejection-learning-to-say-no-and-laughing-it-all-off-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/622217\/","title":{"rendered":"Slow Horses actor Ruth Bradley on handling rejection, learning to say no and laughing it all off \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ruth Bradley<\/a> loves her character in Slow Horses<\/a>. At one point, she \u201cfell in love\u201d with her. \u201cWe put this thing out there, a \u2018this is who I am\u2019 to the world, but actually we\u2019re all just kind of babies who grew up and want to be loved,\u201d she says of Emma Flyte, MI5\u2019s head of security in the Apple TV spy drama. It\u2019s a dream job for the award-winning Irish actor, not least because in the upcoming sixth season she gets to show another side of Flyte: the messy side.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the more this apparently strait-laced woman orbits Slough House, the MI5 fringe office led by dishevelled Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman<\/a>), the closer she seems to resemble the \u201closers, misfits and boozers\u201d who work there. Bradley, in her third year on the show, finally has the chance to give glimpses of the \u201creal Flyte\u201d \u2013 the one who is not quite suited to the corruption and cover-ups of the Park, the show\u2019s shiny intelligence headquarters, after all.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe keeps coming up against people who want to do underhand things, but she really wants to go for the truth, which is actually more Slough House. So this season we see her being herself much more. We get to see who this person is behind closed doors.\u201d<\/p>\n

In one episode, a discombobulated Flyte kicks back on the sofa with a glass of wine. \u201cIn the script, I think it was vitamin water or something, and I said, \u2018No, guys, she\u2019s been [spoiler]. In the books, there\u2019s talk about her drinking beer with chasers, and we hadn\u2019t seen much of her drinking, and I kind of loved the idea that she was so judgmental of Lamb because in real life you always judge people who remind you of yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bradley was a fan of Slow Horses before she was in it. Part thriller, part comedy, Apple TV\u2019s pacy adaptation of Mick Herron<\/a>\u2019s series of books resembles \u201can old-school, prime-time show\u201d in its appeal, while also commanding the ample budget (there\u2019s plenty of expensive location filming in central London) and high-calibre cast typical of the streaming age. She would play Flyte forever if she could, she says, speaking over Zoom from her home in north London, where she lives with her partner and two young daughters.<\/p>\n

The role demands lots of training for various gun-wielding action sequences, which this season involves some \u201chorrible sprinting on a sandy beach\u201d, where Flyte and most of the Slough House gang end up. \u201cWe were in Suffolk, all living in this beautiful little village. It was like a gorgeous holiday, and then we\u2019d go and do our sprinting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being away on location with the cast and crew was a brilliant bonding experience, especially with costar Hugo Weaving<\/a> \u2013 \u201che\u2019s just like the wonderful godfather of sociability\u201d \u2013 on hand, though the schedule was intense. One weekend, they took a break from the beach filming to fly over to what was then known as the Sag awards in Los Angeles, where the cast, including Bradley, were nominated in the drama ensemble category.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all got to get in the plane together and catch up again and hang out with Gary, who lives over there, and it was just really gorgeous,\u201d she says. She likes this dimension of the job. \u201cI do take the work very seriously, but it also has to be fun, you know. You\u2019re getting dressed up and nice people come and do your hair, and you have a lovely chat with the people doing your make-up, and it\u2019s just this really enjoyable time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RuthRuth Bradley and Gary Oldman in Slow Horses. Photograph: Apple TV <\/p>\n

As the eldest daughter of Irish actor Charlotte Bradley, she grew up understanding that the acting world isn\u2019t always as glamorous as this. \u201cI knew what the reality of it was. I wasn\u2019t thinking, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m just going to be on the red carpet and be a millionaire.\u201d<\/p>\n

And yet she also can\u2019t remember a time when she didn\u2019t want to act. Born in Dublin, she spent some of her early years in Newfoundland, Canada, but was raised mainly in Killester and Clontarf, with her parents separating when she was 12. She was just six months old when she was brought to her first rehearsals for Charlotte\u2019s work with pioneering Dublin theatre company Passion Machine.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that I have kids, I think of what they\u2019re like at six months, when they\u2019re just taking everything in, ingesting, and I do wonder. Because when people ask me when I thought I wanted to be an actor, I\u2019m like, \u2018I just always did.\u2019 There was never any other thought in my head, and there never has been since.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she was eight, Charlotte was performing in a Passion Machine production called Buddleia, which had a cast of 30, and ended up touring to London and Warsaw. \u201cThere was one scene with a young couple and their daughter in the bed, so my mother just said \u2018Oh, Ruth can do that\u2019, and I was delighted. Since day dot I\u2019d been saying when can I act, when can I be on the stage?\u201d<\/p>\n

No longer would she have to be content with just watching rehearsals while pretending to do her maths homework. \u201cI had one line, and my line was \u2018Mammy\u2019, but it was amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was about 15 when she started acting \u201cproperly\u201d. Charlotte, who later played her mother in the 2006 BBC drama The Innocence Project, was always supportive of her career \u2013 Ruth\u2019s younger sister R\u00f3is\u00edn Murphy<\/a> is also an actor, and brother Ferdia works in the industry \u2013 without being pushy. \u201cShe was the opposite of a stage mom. She was always very much like, \u2018You need a childhood. You\u2019re not getting an agent until you\u2019re at least 16.\u2019 I think the second I turned 16, she let me do it, but she was right. I was so obsessed with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

After going to Trinity College Dublin \u201cfor five minutes\u201d, she upped sticks for London aged 18, keen to make her mark. \u201cI think the beginning, for me, was the toughest because I moved here as a kid, really, and I\u2019d worked in Ireland but I\u2019d never experienced a bigger industry and massive capital city,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"RuthRuth Bradley: ‘If you\u2019re working on something you don\u2019t believe in, it\u2019s hard to do your best work.’ Photograph: David Reiss <\/p>\n

Figuring out \u201cwho you are and how you\u2019re supposed to operate\u201d in a world geared towards secure, regular income was \u201ctricky\u201d, as was getting her work-life balance right. \u201cInitially I thought I needed to be obsessing over acting and reading acting books. It took me years to realise that maybe that\u2019s not what is good for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the years she has learned to think of her career as a marathon and become at peace with the idea that the right thing comes along at the right time. \u201cI\u2019m much better at surrendering to it and trusting it. But, really, the older I get, the more I think there aren\u2019t many downsides. I\u2019ve been very lucky, you know? And a lot of it is just luck.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Cops, robbers and nicotine stains: The Gold is a love letter to the 1980s Britain the Irish knew so wellOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Luck, but also talent. Even viewers who haven\u2019t seen her in Slow Horses will probably have caught her in something: Bradley is one of those quietly gifted actors who inhabits her screen roles to such an extent that people are sometimes surprised to discover that Flyte is played by the same person who was the no-nonsense teacher who flirts with Roy Kent in Apple\u2019s Ted Lasso<\/a> or, say, the status-revelling wife of Dominic Cooper\u2019s grasping solicitor in the BBC\u2019s The Gold.<\/p>\n

Others will remember her as normality-craving Mary in RT\u00c9 ratings phenomenon Love\/Hate<\/a>, in which her assured performance made her a standout in a cast replete with rising stars. Irish people living abroad still bring up the show with her all this time later, she says.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Gun play: how ‘Love\/Hate’ became RT\u00c9’s best dramaOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cSixteen years ago, it\u2019s crazy. I remember being struck at the read-through by how interesting the casting was, how young everybody was, how the boys were kind of gorgeous kids, you know. But we had no idea how it was going to hit.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is also fondly remembered by fans of Channel 4\u2019s robot-themed drama Humans (2015-2018), in which she played Karen Voss, a detective hiding the fact she is a \u201csynth\u201d. In one key reveal scene showing Karen reach down into her throat to remove a bag containing the wine she consumed while pretending to be human, Bradley decided she would drop her head back as if she had no spine. \u201cA bit of a neck injury\u201d lingered as a result, she says wryly, \u201cBecause I have a spine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RuthRuth Bradley and Robert Sheehan in Love\/Hate. Photograph: RT\u00c9 \"Rebellion:Rebellion: Ruth Bradley as Frances <\/p>\n

She has won Iftas for Grabbers, an Irish comedy-horror film<\/a> in which she had to act drunk for much of the runtime; for Rebellion, the RT\u00c9 costume drama about the 1916 Rising; and for RT\u00c9\u2019s 2006 miniseries Stardust, in which she played survivor turned campaigner Antoinette Keegan, who lost two sisters in the nightclub fire. It felt close to home for Bradley. \u201cMy mother\u2019s from Artane, so I\u2019d grown up hearing about the survivors and the kids who died there.\u201d<\/p>\n

She cites Stardust and an Australian film called In Her Skin, in which she portrayed the killer in the real-life case of a murdered teenager, as early breakthroughs that made her feel proud to be an actor. Being trusted with the responsibility to tell somebody\u2019s story is an honour, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat always hits me, playing a real person who has been through something real, because, well, there\u2019s no space for ego. You can\u2019t be thinking about yourself. It has to be really selfless to be done properly.\u201d<\/p>\n

On In Her Skin, she worked with Sam Neill, the Omagh-born New Zealand actor who died in July. \u201cHe\u2019s gorgeous. He was gorgeous, oh God,\u201d she says. On set, he was \u201cjust so caring and kind\u201d to Bradley, who was only 21 when she was playing this sensitive role, and would help her separate herself from the weight of it once filming stopped.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Remembering Sam Neill: The breadth of Omagh-born actor\u2019s work was extraordinaryOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

She has been home to Ireland for jobs recently and \u201cflippin\u2019 loves\u201d it, in part because she often recognises the crew from projects she worked on back when she was just getting started. She likes the \u201ctheatrical troupe vibe\u201d of Irish productions, she says, and finds the constant slagging is good for her soul.<\/p>\n

Last year she shot The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes, in which she plays the sister of a dying woman, though the film is more uplifting than this sounds. She will also soon appear in Walk the Blue Fields, a Netflix adaptation of a Claire Keegan<\/a> story, alongside Emily Blunt, Andrew Scott and Ciar\u00e1n Hinds, and she has just finished making a coming-of-age film called Bender, set during the papal visit to Ireland in 1979.<\/p>\n

\"RuthRuth Bradley in Slow Horses. Photograph: Jack English\/ Apple TV \"RuthRuth Bradley and Christopher Chung in Slow Horses. Photograph: Apple TV+ <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a total comedy, but my character has got some of the really sad hard-core drama,\u201d she says. She had \u201can absolute blast\u201d on it, nevertheless. \u201cEven if you\u2019re on the floor crying, there should still be an element of fun to it for me, because otherwise it gets too earnest. And that\u2019s life, isn\u2019t it? We\u2019re really upset, and then we crack a joke.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Bender, she got to use her own accent, which she loved. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of rare that I get to do that now,\u201d she says. \u201cWith the Irish accent, for me, so much of our heart and soul just comes out of our mouth. It\u2019s all in the body. Certain accents hold that back.\u201d<\/p>\n

We talk about what she wants to do next. She likes how rewarding it can be to make independent films, though they\u2019re \u201calways a gamble\u201d and can mean everyone \u201cgetting in the trenches together\u201d to make them work. Finance delays on the film Embers (2023), for instance, meant she ended up filming her role as a sexual surrogate just four weeks after she gave birth to her second child, who she would go into the next room to feed between takes. \u201cIt was really a perfect example of work and life all coming together,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

A return to the stage is also on her wishlist, as is comedy. In this next season of Slow Horses, Flyte is part of several seamlessly executed group scenes in which the comic heart of Herron\u2019s books is to the fore, and it reminded her that she wants to do more of this. \u201cI love doing comedy and for whatever reason it hasn\u2019t come my way as much as straight serious stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

But a script that blows her away is all she needs to say yes. \u201cI never really think of the genre, unless it\u2019s horror, because that\u2019s an awful lot of work for really disturbing nights. I think the older I get, the more sensitive I am as well. Like, God, if I do this job, I\u2019d have to bring this home. Do I want to be thinking about ghosts and demonic possession?\u201d<\/p>\n

Horror is in vogue, though. Maybe people spot something in her that makes them think she would be great at it? She throws her head back, laughing hard at the idea of doing one just to see.<\/p>\n

She has learned a lot from her 20-plus years in the business, including the value of being in a \u201cgood mental place\u201d and saying no to projects that aren\u2019t right for her, even if it means turning down a pay cheque.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re working on something you don\u2019t believe in, it\u2019s hard to do your best work. I\u2019d rather just kind of hope for the best and do something that I\u2019m really invested in.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s helpful for younger actors to understand that \u201crejection is most of the job\u201d, she says. After an audition, you have to be able to walk out of it and tell yourself it\u2019s done, it\u2019s over, and you did your best. \u201cBecause you can\u2019t control any of that. You can\u2019t control why you\u2019re cast, or who wants you. And most of the time, one person voted yes, one person voted no. You can\u2019t be thinking about any of that stuff. You just make it real, you present what you\u2019ve got and then you forget it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a philosophy that has led to a long list of screen credits and many magnetic performances. In one highly satisfying scene in an upcoming episode of Slow Horses, the usually deferential, protocols-adoring Flyte tells her boss, Diana Tavener (Kristin Scott Thomas), \u201cF**k you and [spoiler]\u201d. They had time to shoot it, so they tried out lots of versions, with Bradley knowing she could trust the director to pick the right one.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the takes we did were like a teenage daughter having a strop with her mother,\u201d she says. \u201cI really leaned into my teenage angst.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slow Horses returns to Apple TV on Wednesday, September 16th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ruth Bradley loves her character in Slow Horses. At one point, she \u201cfell in love\u201d with her. \u201cWe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3288,114057,7246,93,32060,219268,61,60,709,19634,61877],"class_list":["post-622217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-apple-tv","tag-claire-keegan","tag-emily-blunt","tag-entertainment","tag-gary-oldman","tag-hugo-weaving","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-magazine","tag-mick-herron","tag-roisin-murphy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}