Guy Speranza spent six seasons making sure Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb looked exactly as filthy as readers imagined. The Slow Horses costume designer now says the highest praise he ever received was not about a neat stitch or a sharp collar. It was about smell. A viewer told him they could smell Lamb through the television, and Speranza took that as a job well done.
The Compliment That Meant the Most to Guy Speranza
The quote is short, strange and completely fitting for a show about spies who have been pushed to the edges of respectability. Speranza shared the line during a recent conversation about his work on the Apple TV+ series, which wrapped its sixth season on October 21, 2026.
“The best compliment I’ve had is somebody said to me, ‘You can smell him through the TV.’ Thank you. My work is done.”
The designer expanded on the same idea in a separate interview, explaining why the comment landed so well.
“To be honest, the biggest compliment I’ve ever had is like, you can smell him through the TV. He’s a revolting human being. He’s a mess, but those guys still exist, they still wear a suit and a tie and they think that’s them being smart.”
Lamb is the head of Slough House, the rundown MI5 office where disgraced agents are sent to finish their careers in boredom. He drinks, he passes gas, he insults everyone around him, and he wears the same tired suit with the same tired coat. The character is written to be unpleasant in almost every way, and the costume team made sure the screen matched the page.
How the Slow Horses Team Made Jackson Lamb Look So Bad
Making a character look this unkempt is not a quick job. Speranza told Forbes that almost everything Oldman wore as Lamb was made to measure, including the suits, shirts, ties and the blue suede shoes. The goal was not to make him look poor or careless in a simple way. The goal was to make him look like a man who had stopped noticing how he looked a long time ago.
The process was detailed and deliberate. Fabrics were chosen because they crumpled easily. Suits were cut a little tight so Oldman could push his stomach out and look like he had outgrown them. The team then aged every piece by washing, burning, torching, dyeing, dipping and breaking down the material until it looked naturally worn.
“We had basically two rails of six costumes, all completely broken down, all the same,” Speranza said. “Gary didn’t even want to change suits in the end, wanted to wear the same one all the time, which is probably better because it just starts to mold into that body.”
The book series by Mick Herron describes Lamb as looking like he has been dragged through a charity shop backwards. Speranza used that line as a guide. The shoes were another small detail. They look odd next to the rest of the outfit, as if Lamb picked them up simply because he liked them.
The Author Noticed the Smell Too
The costume work was convincing enough that even the man who created Jackson Lamb commented on it. Herron said he sat next to Oldman while the actor was wearing the character’s Mackintosh coat, and the coat did not smell pleasant.
“It stinks to high heaven,” Herron said. “He’s not a method actor, Gary, but he wears this coat, which I don’t know what they did to it. I think they dragged it through a farmyard on a wet night.”
That detail matters because it shows how far the production went to keep Lamb’s look consistent. The coat was not just a prop. It became part of the character’s presence on set, and the smell added to the atmosphere around Oldman while he worked.
A Job That Took Weeks, Not Minutes
The hair and makeup team faced a similar challenge. Lucy Sibbick, who worked with Oldman on Darkest Hour, handled Lamb’s greasy hair and tired skin. She explained that Oldman comes to set looking clean, and the team then spends hours making him look like he has not washed in days. Products that smell pleasant were used to create a look that reads as unpleasant on screen.
Speranza’s work on Slow Horses ended with the sixth season, which finished its run on October 21, 2026. The show has already been renewed for a seventh season, but the costume designer’s time with the series has closed. His final season gave him one more chance to dress Lamb in the same stained suit and let the character’s messy existence do the rest.
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Why the Smell Comment Fits the Show So Well
Slow Horses has built its reputation on spies who are not glamorous. They work in a building that is falling apart. They argue, they fail, and they rarely look like heroes. Lamb is the clearest example of that idea. He is brilliant at his job, but his appearance is a daily reminder that he has no interest in playing the polished game of intelligence work.
The smell comment works as a compliment because it proves the costume did its job. It did not just make Oldman look untidy. It made viewers feel something about the character before he said a word. A suit can look dirty on camera. A coat can look old. Making an audience believe they can smell a character through a screen takes a different level of detail, and Speranza’s team put that detail into every thread.
“Lots of people have commented that they can smell him on the television, which is, I think, rather a compliment,” Speranza said in an earlier interview about the show’s costumes.
That line has followed the show for years. The recent interview simply gave Speranza a chance to name it as the best feedback he ever received. For a designer whose job is to make a character believable, the comment is proof that the work reached the audience in a way that goes past what the eyes can see.
Also Read: Slow Horses Season 7 Teaser Hints Shirley Dander’s Bad Actors Rehab Storyline Is Finally Happening
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