Will Smith (‘Slow Horses’ creator): Trademark banter and insults are inspired by ‘the school of Armando Iannucci’ [Exclusive Video Interview]

“We’re all quite blown away by it,” admits “Slow Horses” creator Will Smith about the show’s impressive Emmy nominations haul. For our recent webchat he adds, “It’s absolutely amazing! The main thing I take from it is that it’s so great for the show. I just want more people to see the show. It’s really exciting that this will give it some buzz and get more people watching it.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.

SEE Exclusive Video Interview: Jack Lowden (‘Slow Horses’)

“Slow Horses” is based on Mick Herron‘s series of novels, adapted by showrunner Will Smith (“Veep”), about a group of MI5 agents who are consigned to a dumping ground for rejects paying the price for their past mistakes. The outcasts of the British intelligence agency that are banished to the administrative purgatory of Slough House are known as “slow horses.” They’re expected to endure interminably dull, paper-pushing drudgery, along with occasional berating from their rude and abrasive boss, Jackson Lamb. Oscar winner and Emmy nominee Gary Oldman plays the rude, crass and often drunk department head with a bracing panache, reveling in being as unapologetically miserable as possible, while showing flashes of the intellect, perceptiveness and savvy from his former life as a respected spy. The spy drama co-stars Jack Lowden, Oscar and Emmy nominee Kristin Scott Thomas, Saskia Reeves, Rosalind Eleazar, Christopher Chung, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Kadiff Kirwan, Freddie Fox, Tony winner and Oscar and Emmy nominee Sophie Okonedo, Chris Reilly and Tony winner and Oscar and Emmy nominee Jonathan Pryce.

“Slow Horses” scored an impressive nine Emmy nominations this year; for Best Drama Series, Oldman for Best Drama Actor, Lowden for Best Drama Supporting Actor, Pryce for Best Drama Guest Actor, Saul Metzstein for directing (for the season premiere “Strange Games”), and for the show’s editing, casting and music composition. Smith also picked up a nomination for writing the pivotal third episode of the season (“Negotiating with Tigers”), which is his first individual writing nomination (after having won two Emmys for Best Comedy Series as part of the team behind “Veep”). “Negotiating With Tigers” is the action-packed inflection point in the season as we learn more about the formidable Tiger team, MI5’s band of brutish tough-guy enforcers. It’s revealed that their nefarious ultimate goal is to obtain the mysterious gray books, which detail the conspiracy theories that MI5 has debunked over the years. The episode also features Lowden’s laconic Cartwright being beaten to a pulp while stuck in the bowels of the fortress-like MI5 headquarters, and boasts some of Jackson Lamb’s most searing and hilarious one-liners.

So much of the show’s success is because of Smith’s ability to adeptly cram all of the necessary plot and narrative into each episode, while also leaving room for the show to breathe by peppering certain scenes with the witty asides and cutting insults that fans look forward to each season. “I come from the school of Armando Iannucci, who I spent years and years working with and who’s an incredible mentor and influence. I owe my career to him in so many ways,” Smith admits. “He was always like, ‘make sure there’s more than one thing going on in a scene.’ You start in the middle. Have somebody trying to go off that way, and they’re being pulled this way. Never have them stop to explain the plot,” he explains. “It is a drama, not a comedy, but it has funny moments, so it’s making sure that whenever somebody does or says something funny, it’s not a joke. It doesn’t feel like it’s a forced moment. It comes from the scene and the character.”

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