The egomaniac hacker has been a dream role for actor Christopher Chung, with the supporting role becoming more central as the series has continued; for the fourth season of Slow Horses, he received a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In the fifth season, now airing weekly on AppleTV+, his character is forced further under the spotlight after falling into a honeytrap, his “girlfriend” vaguely linked to a string of seemingly random terrorist attacks occurring around London.
After a public embarrassment in front of his colleagues last season, when he discovered his girlfriend was in fact AI, you’d expect his cocky persona to crack even further. That couldn’t be further from what happens; Ho still refuses to accept this was all a fantasy orchestrated by a group who needed to distract MI5 even as they try to kill him, but Chung thinks this is more of an obvious facade than ever – his character is broken in a way that he wasn’t before.
“He’s more vulnerable than ever, just in a way that only Roddy Ho can be vulnerable”, the actor told Zavvi. “The cracks start to show in season four, when he realises his girlfriend isn’t real, but you only see his whole world shatter behind his eyes – it's why he’s so quickly able to build himself back up.
“The fact that Tara (Hiba Bennani) is a physical presence he’s held hands and danced with makes his vulnerability this season more pertinent and tangible – I think you can understand and empathise why he’s able to justify concerns about being in a honey trap so quickly. The penny drops for him, but he can turn it on its head and believe that his honey trapper fell in love with him because he’s God’s gift to women.”
Chung characterises Roddy’s arc every season as being that of a man who is always on the cusp of meaningful self-discovery – and then completely messing it up, returning to being the cocky egomaniac who pushes everybody around him away. The events of this season premiere alone, when his fellow Joes realise he’s being used long before he does, does enough to shatter his latest reinvention.
“He comes into this season as a peacock, overly confident and self-assured, costumed and make-upped to be the loudest version of himself because he is, as far as anybody knows, the s**t he’s always known himself to be. He’s wearing a metallic purple tracksuit and has a man bun, for God’s sake!
“As the season naturally goes downhill for him, you might start to see a little bit of softness, which will get picked up in season six, where he’s wearing another new mask and trying out another new version of himself.”
Ho's unwillingness to ever display self-growth, a process that has gone on for five seasons and counting, should make him a dramatically infuriating character. It’s an ongoing testament to Chung and the team of writers that they always manage to find depth in someone who doesn’t want you to think he has any.
“What I found most challenging this season was portraying that shift, when he learns the truth as it’s being laid out for him, and you can see him silently inventing a story to protect his own ego whilst hearing the facts. It’s a quick and detailed journey to go on within five seconds, but I think it reveals a lot about Ho, how he only processes things to spin his own narrative from them.
“He has enough self-awareness to know that if he doesn’t flip the narrative and lets the truth in, then he must face the real-world and its consequences coming into his life. It’s very difficult to show his vulnerability and humanity in such brief moments, but so is playing his obnoxious arrogance in a way that the audience might find slightly endearing; he’s a character you might love to hate, but one I hope you also have come to understand.”
At his first audition, Chung assumed he wouldn’t get the role because of his physique – as a part-time personal trainer in addition to being an actor, he doesn’t have the build of your average hacker. When he was offered the role, he was told this would be built into the character – and this season, it feels like the show fully takes advantage of this for the first time.
“As an actor, I always wanted Roddy to feel more capable instead of just the butt of the joke; his physicality has always been visible, but the show has never previously leaned into it in a way that offers any commentary, it’s been a silent aspect of his personality. Now, when you see his flat with the weight bench and all the protein powder, it becomes obvious this is all him trying to play into a bro persona he thinks he should have.
“It’s very specific, but I’ve met so many people who know someone like this – he's a kind of guy who exists and couldn’t be further from the stereotypes associated with hacker characters we’ve seen before.”
Without spoiling the direction of the latest season, the already-filmed season six will see Ho’s biggest reinvention yet – although he can never truly escape from his egomania.
“I think the trick with Ho in the next in the upcoming season is that he feels that he's put on the mask of someone that has gone through a harrowing experience and learned something from it”, Chung concluded. “When in actuality he hasn't really done anything close to that!
“He might appear a little bit more enlightened in a way that might ground him to the same reality as everybody else, but there’s a limit – he’s grounded in a way that only he could be grounded.”
New episodes of Slow Horses season five premiere every Wednesday on AppleTV+.
