That’s the question that Slow Horses fans asked after laying eyes on Kyle Soller and MyAnna Buring’s menacing, mysterious assassins, Jim and Jane, in Season 6.
asserted
fans → ’ → Season
But it’s also the question the actors worked with writer Gaby Chiappe and director Adam Randall to answer, consulting Mick Herron’s text for guidance and crafting their own compelling backstories.
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actors → ’ → backstories
“Everyone was really up for not making them two-dimensional Terminator Russian assassins, and MyAnna and I loved that,” Soller told DECIDER over Zoom.
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Soller → make → Zoom
“We like to get into weird territories with characters, and I think we certainly made them weird.
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them → like → characters
We came up with a whole bunch of backstory stuff, but fundamentally at the core of it, they’re real people… because I think it’s more interesting to play a character who is a normal person — who happens to be doing a very fucked up job, but who has normal person feelings at the same time.
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who → come → time
At the end of Episode 2, Jim and Jane took a moment to acknowledge how easy it was to check names off of their hit list.
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it → take → list
But things got a whole lot harder when they targeted River (Jack Lowden), Sid (Olivia Cooke), and Coe (Tom Brooke).
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they → get → River
After a brutal bathroom fight, Jim unfortunately killed Slough House’s beloved weirdo, Coe, in Episode 4.
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Jim → kill → Episode
But after a car crash and intense physical fights in the woods, River and Sid drowned Jim in a lake in Episode 5, marking a bittersweet end to Soller’s time on the show.
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River → drown → show
“At this point of the story, it’s all really scrappy, everybody has been up for days, and Jim’s just been in this horrible car accident.
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Jim → ’ → accident
So you see this quite primal release from everybody,” he told DECIDER.
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he → see → DECIDER
I mean, they just have a knack for making it psychological and truthful, and being very real at the same time.”
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it → mean → time
You play Jim, this Russian assassin who’s menacingly moving through the world with his partner, Jane.
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who → play → partner
What was it like crafting that unique dynamic with MyAnna Buring?
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it → craft → Buring
It was pretty wild trying to come up with these characters.
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It → try → characters
Of course we went back to what Mick Herron had written, and then what Gaby Chiappe was trying to establish with [director] Adam Randall as well.
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Chiappe → go → Randall
There were all these chats through the audition process about, “Who the fuck are these people?”
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people → be → process
Everyone was really up for not making them two-dimensional Terminator Russian assassins, and MyAnna and I loved that.
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MyAnna → make → that
I think that’s how we work.
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we → think → ?
We like to get into weird territories with characters, and I think we certainly made them weird.
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them → like → characters
We came up with a whole bunch of backstory stuff, but fundamentally at the core of it, they’re real people.
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they → come → it
Something we held on to was this connection that, because of their professionalism and their job and how under lock and key they are by the Russians, they couldn’t let the other know.
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other → hold → Russians
But it’s just busting through the surface for each other.
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it → bust → other
We thought that was something that could be cool to thread through, and we experimented with different ways of doing that while shooting, some non-verbally, some verbally.
uncertain
we → think → some
Then Adam came up with his cut.
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Adam → come → cut
We see some lighter moments between them in the car.
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We → see → car
And a scene that stuck with me is when they’re trying to kill Moira, and Jim takes the time to sit with her on the couch, and puts the TV on, and grabs her hand, and has what feels like a human experience that made me think he might want out.
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he → stick → experience
That’s something Adam and I spoke about: Who is totally up for this and who is looking for an out?
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who → ’ → out
I got to have fun with Jim, just loving being in the UK and experiencing the kind of wonder of a hardware store off the North Circular.
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I → get → Circular
He really gets into the whole dressing up and the process of it all.
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He → get → it
But he is kind of looking for an out, whereas MyAnna is much more by the book and in it for the long haul, so that creates tension between us…
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that → look → us
It was really fun, because I think it’s more interesting to play a character who is a normal person, who happens to be doing a very fucked up job, who has normal person feelings at the same time.
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who → think → time
It just makes it a bit weirder and more difficult to rectify what he’s doing to people, while also being in love with his partner.
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he → make → partner
So he does have a heart, but he shuts it off for his job.
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he → have → job
Episode 4 is one of my favorite TV episodes of the year, but I’m absolutely gutted that you killed our beloved little weirdo, Coe.
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you → ’m → weirdo
Tom and I are friends, and I’ve wanted to work with him for a very long time, so it was awesome.
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it → want → time
We were working together, trying to come up with the scene right before the fight.
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We → work → fight
Going back to the text of the book, talking with Gaby, trying to figure out something that was a bit weird, but where the gloves are actually off, and there are these two people that just meet each other.
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that → go → other
So Tom wrote that scene, it got edited by Gaby, and we worked it out with Adam.
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we → write → Adam
Then the fight sequence itself was so cool to work on, because it’s such an enclosed space, and you get to see two people having to do something they might not really want to do at the time.
uncertain
they → work → time
…and 37 more, not listed.
The Aporia
