Ruth Bradley has revealed she spent a week playing a corpse on a beach while silently weeping after her character Emma Flyte's death in the Slow Horses season six finale. The 39-year-old Irish actor was told of Flyte's demise before she was cast as the head dog at MI5 for season four, but only learned exactly how her character would go out right before they shot it.
Bradley knew of Flyte's fate years in advance
There had been rumours among the crew that Hugo Weaving's hitman Frank Harkness would do the deed, in a change from Mick Herron's source material. Bradley admits the build-up was 'strange', recalling crew members saying things like, 'Oh my God! And you die. When are you going to die? When do you die?'
She says: 'It's weird because your brain doesn't go, "Oh, they're talking about Emma Flyte". This family I'd been with for years. It all felt very surreal.'
The beach execution scene
The big beach stand-off, where Harkness executes Flyte as she lies wounded in the sand, came in the final week of filming. They mapped out the moves with director Adam Randall, but not so much 'the inner life' of that moment.
Bradley says she had the chance to play the moment between fighting and realising she was going to die, noting that a line in the stage direction referred to the realisation it's her final moment. 'You never know in the edit if they're going to use all that. But Adam really let those moments breathe, which I think is what's really good about the show. Yeah, it's fun, it's a thriller and it's high octane. But also, it can be very human.'
'The idea of basically being executed on a beach when you can't get away. We can all relate to how horrendous that would be. And there would be a moment of… Jesus. That's it now. That's my last moment.'
A week of grieving on set
Flyte died on a Monday and the season wrapped on Friday. Bradley spent the rest of the week as a corpse on the beach while the cast ran around her prone position. She says it allowed her to grieve Flyte while still playing her.
'I always have a bit of a slump after a job, but this was such a long time with a character. I got to really be in the grief for the week,' she says. Randall would deliver notes to her castmates – or, as Bradley puts it, 'the actors who are still alive' – and would check if she was alright, lying there.
'I'd just be silently weeping in the sand going, "I can't believe it's over, and I'm in this kind of suspended place between Emma's life and death". He's like, "Alright, anyway, moving on".'
Hair cut and cast camaraderie
When the season wrapped, Bradley made a beeline for the make-up bus and chopped all her hair off, after producers okayed it. 'I had to keep that long blonde hair for a long time. So it was helpful to have mourned her and then chopped the hair on Friday night. Wake up Saturday fresh,' she says.
Given this season was filmed last year, the months since included some white lies, as people on other projects queried why she wasn't filming Slow Horses, which is currently shooting season eight. 'That's been harder. Now I can breathe a sigh of relief,' she says.
Filming the Apple TV hit sounds just as fun as you might imagine. After long shoots on the beach, Bradley says they would retreat to Weaving's place, where he would cook them all dinner. 'It's like going back to the best school ever. At this stage, we're all pretty close, and we still are,' she says.
The cast recently attended the Emmys as one big crew, with Bradley noting her feet were still sore. 'We were looking around at all the other shows, like, "I wonder if all these casts and producers get on so well." We know each other really well after so many years, and it's only brought us closer together, really,' she says.
Slow Horses was up for five gongs at the Emmys, but only walked away with one, for outstanding directing. Bradley says the cast weirdly love that it's in keeping with the show, just like the underdogs.
Slow Horses season six is available to stream on Apple TV.
