Barbican Station – Slow Horses Saskia Reeves interview

Barbican Station - A Slow Horses Podcast

Host Jeff interviews actress Saskia Reeves about her portrayal of Catherine Standish in the spy drama Slow Horses. They explore how Reeves co

Key takeaways

• Saskia Reeves reads scripts first but treats Mick Herron's novels as 'juicy, fertile soil' to inform her performance.
• Costume designer Guy Speranza and Reeves collaborated to ensure Catherine's Laura Ashley-style wardrobe balances practicality with a deliberate sense of femininity.

Main topics

• Character development of Catherine Standish
• Collaboration with author Mick Herron and production team

Notable quotes

"The books are my juicy, fertile soil. I love Mick's writing."

Conclusion

The episode offers fans an intimate look at the collaborative process behind Slow Horses, highlighting how

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Please mind the gap between the train and the platform. Speaker 1 (0:03) This is Barbican Station. Speaker 1 (0:15) Hello and welcome back to Barbican Station. I'm your host, Jeff. I am back today with yet another interview, this time with Saskia Reeves, none other than Catherine Standish. She's great in the show and was lovely to talk with. So here we go with that interview. Hi. I'm with Barbican Station, which is a podcast that we take a close look at mixed books and the show. So listeners are big fans of both. And it's great to talk with you. Everyone who's read the books has a favorite character. And Catherine is at the top of my list. So I was very nervous when I heard about the show, but felt immediately better when I saw you were cast. And you've proven it out over these past seasons. I think you've read the books. And I was really curious, like what you took from them about Catherine and what you wanted to be sure to include on the screen. Speaker 2 (1:06) Okay. So before you started watching the shows. Speaker 1 (1:09) Oh, yeah. Speaker 2 (1:10) Because I didn't. I read the script first. Then I started reading the books. But the books are my juicy, fertile soil. I love Mick's writing. I love his dialogue. Every now and then Mick's line will probably trump one of ours. You know what? Mick wrote that. I think we should take that and put it in this thing. He has a great ear and he's great with these characters. But Catherine is a combination of imaginations. It's Mick's. He laid it down. Then there's me. And then there's the costume designer. And then there's the director. Initially it was... James Hawes, he did season one. I remember we were doing some rehearsals once and James went, no, no, sass, no, no. That's too schoolmami. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. So it was a series of, it was like making something together. And I remember saying to Guy Speranza, who was the costume designer for the first five seasons, six seasons. Yes. I said, so Laura Ashley then? Because Mick very clearly writes what she wears sometimes and she gets teased for it. I think Lam's always making disparaging comments about what she looks like. Something out of Jane Eyre, I think he said at one point. And Guy said, no, no Laura Ashley. And I