Gary Oldman and ‘Slow Horses’ cast and crew break down the bus scene

As part of Variety “Making a Scene,” presented by HBO, the cast and crew of “Slow Horses,” including Gary Oldman, Christopher Chung, director Saul Metzstein and writer and executive producer Will Smith, broke down the show’s dramatic scene featuring the beloved character Roddy Ho (Chung) drives a bus through a house.

The cast and crew had been so eagerly awaiting to see Chung crash this bus through a house that picnic tables were set up for everyone to watch, and Smith even brought his family along to observe.

“Something like [crashing a bus] brings the entire production into one place for something ridiculous but fun,” said Chung. “It’s great.”

Based on Mick Herron’s novel of the same name, ‘Slow Horses’, the British spy thriller follows a group of disgraced MI5 agents known as the ‘Slow Horses’ who are assigned to a dumping ground division of MI5 called Slough House and are determined to to get back in the game.

Oldman plays Jackson Lamb, the sleazy (but effective) head of Slough House. Each season of the series follows a book from Herron’s Slough House series, which helped a few actors during prep time.

After reading the book before filming Season 3, Chung said he expected the big bus moment to be scrapped altogether or replicated by CGI due to logistical issues.

One of the first concepts for executing the scene was footage of the bus driving from outside. However, during the editing process, Metzstein realized that this would have made for a slow, tedious sequence, as buses cannot accelerate quickly enough across a barnyard.

“It’s more fun, I think, to have the audience share Lamb’s point of view and hear the sound and see the lights and think, ‘What the hell is going on?’” Smith said.

Ultimately, the scene required the team behind “Slow Horses” to implement some physical elements, such as a porch and a stair landing, for optimal shooting.

“As you can imagine, it’s technically quite painful. There are two different buses. There is the outside bus, which we rented and did not crash into anything. And then there’s the bus that we rammed into the set,” Metzstein said. “There’s a lot of things we had to do to make it work… because in a way, for me, the crucial part of the whole joke is that Lamb and Ho are looking at each other on the same eyeline. We literally designed the stairs to give them the perfect look. He can look at the idiot and give him his killing wish.

One of the most important aspects of the scene itself, Metzstein explained, was for the audience to see that Ho is the one driving the bus. The director credited actor Chung with never looking like he was trying to deliver a comedic line, highlighting how the actor’s reaction to Lamb and the subsequent dynamic between the two actors made for excellent comedic effect.

After the crash, Lamb makes the subtle but now iconic joke, “Let me walk through your mind.” A sentence that Oldman called “a dream line.”

Chung said one of the most enjoyable aspects of playing Ho is the way his character can bask in his own world without any self-consciousness of his mistakes.

The scene also featured an improvised line from Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves) in which she says “Hello, Roddy” as she encounters the bus. Metzstein said Smith gives his actors the space and freedom to explore these moments for their characters.

Smith praised the design and set dressing teams for building a home in the studio, and Chung said this scene turned out to be better than he ever imagined.

“I just think we’re very lucky; we really have to thank Apple and manufacturing for letting us do this,” said Smith. “Because there are plenty of places where I think they would have looked at that and said, ‘It’s going to cost so much, you don’t need it for the story, it’s an indulgence, stop it.’ And they completely understand that that’s the show and let us do it and enjoy it. So it’s great. It wasn’t a struggle to do, which is great.”