Gary Oldman appears to have paid tribute to his late The Dark Knight co-star Heath Ledger in a recent episode of the Apple TV+ series Slow Horses. Oldman, 67, stars as the curmudgeonly spy chief Jackson Lamb in the thriller series, while Ledger famously portrayed the Joker in Christopher Nolan's 2008 Batman film.
In the season five episode titled “Incommunicado”, Lamb's underling questions why he must write messages while a colleague is allowed to speak. Lamb retorts: “Because she sticks to the salient points, whereas when you talk, I wanna stick a pencil in my eye and head-butt the table.”
The line echoes a memorable scene from The Dark Knight in which Ledger's Joker says: “How about a magic trick?” before sticking a pencil into a table and smashing a mobster's head onto it. “Ta-da! It's gone,” the Joker declares.
Ledger died in 2008 at the age of 28. The writers of Slow Horses have not publicly commented on the apparent homage, and The Independent has approached a representative for showrunner Will Smith for comment.
The fifth season of Slow Horses has received critical acclaim. In a five-star review for The Independent, critic Chris Bennion praised the performances, script, and comedy-action balance, noting that Lamb is “satisfyingly bad-tempered this season”.
