by Gill Pringle
After making his name in Apple TV’s London-based hit show Slow Horses, Australian actor Christopher Chung would welcome the opportunity to return to his Melbourne home to work again.
“That is my ultimate goal in so many ways,” says Chung, 36, whose previous Aussie credits include a single episode of Neighbours, a couple of commercials and a handful of musical theatre roles.
But within the multi-Emmy and BAFTA winning espionage series that is Slow Horses – now in its fourth season – he finally found his opportunity to shine as Roddy Ho, a member of a small team of Mi5 misfits headed up by Gary Oldman’s inimitable Jackson Lamb.
Based on Mick Herron’s award-winning books, the darkly humorous drama follows the rejects, screwups and self-proclaimed losers who have ended up in a form of spy purgatory at Slough House – cast out of the prestigious spy HQ known as The Park – and now toiling under the “guidance” of Oldman’s brilliant but misanthropic leader.
Chung’s Roddy Ho is an expert hacker who knows why everyone else is there, but can’t quite work out his own story, reliably saying and doing the wrong thing at every turn.
Ask if he shares anything in common with his awkward alter ego, Chung laughs. “I mean, I’m good looking…” he quips, borrowing a line that Ho might say himself.
“But I would say that the thing that we don’t share in common is that Roddy is not empathetic in any way. So, my way into the character is that I am personally quite empathetic, so trying to understand his motivations and figuring out where he’s coming from has been the biggest thing for me. I do think that Roddy is quite misunderstood so that’s probably our common denominator, in that we’re both misunderstood people,” he says.
Born to an Irish mother and a Malaysian father, Chung grew up in Mount Eliza, a Melbourne seaside suburb where he got his first taste of feeling like an outsider.
“Growing up on the Mornington Peninsula, I was probably one of a handful of people from a minority background in this beachy town. I definitely remember feeling on the outside and wanting to, for want of a better term, get into the popular clique, which I guess would be The Park in this situation – but instead I was always relegated to Slough House,” he says.
A 2006 Australian Idol contestant, five years later he made a one-off appearance in Neighbours. “I played a drug dealer. My finest role,” he quips.
Bitten by the acting bug after taking part in a school production of Aladdin, Chung took drama workshops at St Martin’s Youth Theatre, auditioning for singing competitions during his teens.
Struggling to find his feet, he took retail jobs with the Marcs and Morrissey fashion brands, working at David Jones in Melbourne before moving to New York, aged 21, to study at the Ward Acting Studio.
Returning to Melbourne, he was faced with tough decisions. “I came back, and I wanted to find a profession that would be flexible around my performing, so I qualified as a personal trainer. I’ve been personal training now since I was 25 – almost 11 years – and I still do it now,” says Chung, who was touched when the Slow Horses creative team even wrote in a witty detail where Ho’s office chair at Slough House is actually a piece of exercise equipment.
“The thing that’s brilliant about that is that they’ve built those character traits around me. I’ve never had that kind of creative expression to bring parts of myself into a character like that and so it’s just wonderfully satisfying.”
Understandably, his Slow Horses cast-mates – which include Jack Lowden, Kristin Scott Thomas, Saskia Reeves, Rosalind Eleazar, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Kadiff Kirwan and Jonathan Pryce – gravitate to Chung for fitness pointers.
“I’m being asked all the time,” he says, adding somewhat forlornly, “but the thing is, when people know you have a background in health and fitness, they’re always watching what you’re doing. So, it’s really difficult for me to snack on set and eat the chocolate or cookies.”
Chung was both delighted and subsequently crestfallen when he learnt that fellow Aussie Hugo Weaving had been cast in this latest season of Slow Horses.
“I was so excited and getting really amped up to work with another Aussie. And when I read the script, I was like, ‘Oh, God, we don’t have anything together!’ But I made sure I got a message to him through our director that I was really happy to have some more Aussie blood on the show. And, watching what he’s done, he’s definitely enriched the world of Slow Horses,” Chung says of Weaving’s villain Frank Harkness, a ruthless assassin who has created his own child army. The veteran actor describes his character as “a weird cross between Fagin and Darth Vader.”
If Chung couldn’t catch a break in Australia, then his decision to move to the UK in 2012 proved fortuitous. “I decided to shift my career to Europe, because my mother’s Irish and I had an Irish passport. I took the path of least resistance,” says the actor who would go on to portray Kurt in the West End debut of Heathers, a musical adaptation of the cult classic film. Featuring in Here Lies Love for the Royal National Theatre and Romeo & Juliet for Shakespeare’s Globe, he would also become a series regular in acclaimed BBC TV drama series, Waterloo Road.
“But, my ultimate goal – and I’ve said this to my reps many times – is to come back to Australia to work, because I don’t think the industry grows if we’re always continually exporting our best talent to shores afar. I would love to return and do something in Australia at some point.”
Growing up in Australia during an era where the conventional career path led to Hollywood, today he reflects, “I definitely think that the opportunities on a global scale are now available to everybody. I think if I was to do my career over again, I don’t know if I would feel such a necessity to have to leave again. I feel like I could get discovered from Australia.
“I think it’s an international marketplace now and you can be cast from anywhere in the world. I think the whole pilot season has become obsolete in Hollywood now, although, perhaps I’m wrong? But I know fewer and fewer actors are going out to LA to pursue that line although that was definitely the traditional route when I was back in Australia,” he says.
Working on Slow Horses since the very first season has been nothing short of exhilarating – particularly sharing scenes with Oldman.
“I always joke with Gary that we should do a musical episode of Slow Horses. Remember, back in the ‘90s, when they always used to make like one episode of a drama into a musical? They absolutely should bring that back,” he enthuses.
Naturally, the cast were aware of Chung’s musical background from the get-go. “There’s a video of me and Gary, Saskia and Roz at Blake’s grave in the first season, and we were freezing our bums off. And I started singing ‘My Girl’, and Gary began singing along, and we all got involved. It was great fun.
“And Gary is very musical as well, like he’s extremely musical. He knew I could sing, and asked me to sing on a track – just for fun – that he had recorded of ‘Let it Be’ by the Beatles. He played the keyboard, and then he sent me the music, and I recorded the vocals, and then he mixed it together, but it’s something that we made just for fun.
“And I love that he’s always creating; always making something not for any other purpose but to feel that creative drive. I think that’s something that I’ll always take away: just create for the sake of being creative,” he says of the Oscar-winning actor who constantly cracks him up on set.
“Gary’s like a big kid. Even between takes, he’s telling us anecdotes from when he was doing theatre or when he was on set with Anthony Hopkins, just the most incredible stories. And if he’s not doing that, he’s doing Columbo impressions. Or Charlie Chaplin. He’s boundlessly full of play and full of beans; always wanting to keep the morale up. If it’s a really long day or a really hard shoot, like a night shoot or something, he’s constantly performing for us, and we’re kind of the eternal audience for him – and I’m more than happy to be that.”
Given how he plays a spy in Slow Horses – albeit a reject spy – the thought of being a real-life spy has certainly crossed his mind. “When we did the first season, we had some experts come in, former spies, and they said a lot of spies, when they finish, they decide to go into performing because they’ve always got some kind of front on, so they’re always acting,” he says, mischievously adding, “You never know, I might be one now!”
When he dreams of returning home, he has a long list of Australian talent with whom he would like to work. “There’s so many. I would love to work with Baz Luhrmann – he’s a visionary. I also loved Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel, so understated and beautiful. I’d love to work with Cate Blanchett. She’s an icon, of course. And Toni Collette, all of them. And Hugo Weaving? I’d love to do a scene with him one day.
“I think the thing that’s quite wonderful about this job in particular, is that it feels like something that used to feel so untouchable to me. But now I feel like I can actually do that.”
Slow Horses: Season 4 is streaming now on Apple TV+
