In Slow Horses, the main antagonist of a smart (and disgusting) Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), whom he hates and respects, is none other than the cunning and ambitious Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott-Thomas). And if Lamb, with his rudeness and cleverness, doesn’t underestimate “Lady Di” (the nickname he gave to his rival, who couldn’t be more different from the original, Diana Spencer) who are we?

Diana Taverner is a perfect role for Kristin, known for playing a British snob like few others and who is fun (and having fun) as the insufferable Diana, MI5’s deputy director general and chief of operations and designated “Second Counter”. Being the vice and second is something that bothers her tremendously and that governs all her decisions in the Apple TV Plus series.

To make her and Lamb’s lives worse, Diana also oversees Slough House where MI5’s ‘worst’ team is stationed. Because of the pronunciation in English, they are called Slow Horses to highlight how low they are. Diana’s disdain doesn’t affect Jackson Lamb because he manages to anticipate her in everything, but she knows him extremely well and the game of chess and insults between them is always the highlight of any episode.

As everyone knows, Diana is tired of waiting to become number 1 and has her colleague, Ingrid Tearney (Sophie Okonedo) as an obstacle, so everything she does has the objective of removing Tearney from the role, but, so far, others are getting in the way of her efforts. plans. The fact that she is one of the smartest in a group of smart people frustrates her tremendously, but she tries to hide it. “The problem with Diana is that she is number 2 and she doesn’t have much time to get to number 1,” the actress said in an interview. “The race has started. And she’s now, I wouldn’t say clinging to anything, but she’s sailing very close to the wind. It must be stressful being her. I don’t think she sleeps very well,” she laughed.

In the third season, punished for a political game once again and once again linked to the mistakes of River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), she follows with keen curiosity Ingrid Tearney’s difficulty in staying where she is. The problem is that Ingrid knows exactly what is happening and how much Diana is contributing to making things even more difficult for her. Which gives us more precise shots, and looks of disgust from the ambitious vice-director.

Kristin, who knows Diana Taverner like few others – after all, she brings her to life – has the best way to describe her “She is very unpleasant”, she explains, adding that the lack of compassion or empathy exhausts her, even though she also has fun. For an actress, aged 62, Diana Taverner also deals with machismo and edarism, which are two obstacles that are still complex for any woman. “There is still a lot of resistance to the older woman still having her wits about her. While men become older, women are somehow taken less seriously as they get older,” she assessed. This prejudice also affected the actress, who until she was 40 years old was called on to play romantic partners with actors her age, but today she is the grandmother or the villain on duty.

Still, halfway through the story of this third season (the fourth is already certain), it is difficult to predict whether Diana will be able to get Ingrid out of her way. Her intolerance, her impeccable wardrobe her habit of applying lip balm when she says terrible things, and the fear she instills in people only promises to increase. ”Diana is definitely aware that she is scary. She knows how to turn up the volume,” warns Kristin Scott-Thomas.

What else can she do?

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