Slow Horses villain confirms season 5 return

Slow Horses star Hugo Weaving has confirmed he will return for the fifth season of the show, which is due to start production in the new year.

The actor debuted as Frank Harkness in the fourth season of the Apple TV+ show, which followed Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) and his ragtag team of spies at Slough House as they investigated a series of bombings across London.

With the fifth season – which is based on Mick Herron’s novel, London Rules – already being greenlit, production is set to get underway in the coming months, with Weaving confirming that he will reprise his role as the villain.

“Each season generally is a book, but also each season departs a little bit from those books,” he said at the International Film Festival of India (via Variety). “We’re getting to the point with Slow Horses where the seasons are catching up to the amount of books that [Mick] Herron has written.”

In addition to Weaving, Ruth Bradley, Tom Brooke, Joanna Scanlan and James Callis – who all joined the show in season four – are expected to reprise their roles in the next instalment, which is due to start filming in January.

Whilst filming on the fifth season will get underway soon, the future of the show has already been confirmed beyond that, with the sixth and seventh seasons – which are based on Joe Country and Slough House respectively – being greenlit.

“Audiences around the world have fallen in love with the Slow Horses, and I’m delighted that Gary Oldman will be leading this star-studded cast on another acerbic and action-packed adventure,” said Jay Hunt, Apple TV+'s creative director for Europe.

“Season six sees the Slow Horses on the run as Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas) embroils them all in a fatally high-stakes game of retaliation and revenge,” reads the logline for the season.

Slow Horses streams on Apple TV+.