Naomi Wirthner in Slow Horses
Naomi Wirthner plays Molly Doran, the archivist whose conversations with senior intelligence officers can make the Park’s hierarchy look distinctly fragile. Her management and Shakespeare’s Globe biographies both identify Slow Horses among her principal screen credits. Molly is an especially enjoyable role for an actor who can suggest authority without competing for the loudest voice in a room.
Watch how Wirthner handles the arrival of somebody seeking a favour. She makes the visitor establish a reason for being there, rather than allowing a senior job title to do the work. The humour depends on the imbalance between the visitor’s urgency and her own command of the encounter. The archive becomes a workplace with its own rules, not merely a cupboard full of convenient answers.
Molly’s scenes to revisit
Series 2–5 performance spoilers
In Series 2, Molly’s exchanges with Lamb give the investigation a connection to older intelligence records. Boardroom Politics is a useful starting point for her part in that story. Wirthner keeps the conversation brisk: the atmosphere suggests professional familiarity without stopping the action for a speech about their shared history.
Her encounter with Whelan in Penny for Your Thoughts lets her resist a much grander title. The later home visit in Grave Danger changes the register, placing the same character under direct threat. Returning to Circus makes a rewarding comparison: Molly’s knowledge remains important even when her institutional position has changed.
What the production has said
Will Smith discussed Molly’s wider fictional history in a 2024 TheWrap interview about Jackson Lamb. He pointed to The Secret Hours and its Berlin storyline, while emphasising the attraction of leaving some of Lamb’s past unexplained. This is the writer’s account of the characters, rather than a claim about Wirthner’s preparation. It helps explain why these present-day conversations can carry the weight of a longer association.
Stage and screen highlights
Wirthner’s theatre work includes Robert Icke’s The Doctor, which opened at the Almeida in 2019. Her management biography identifies her as the originator of Hardiman. The production places professional authority, identity and medical ethics in conflict, offering another setting where listening and disagreement are central dramatic actions. Its argument is far removed from a spy investigation, but viewers interested in Molly’s refusal to defer will recognise the pleasure of an encounter with resistance.
In 2026 she played Ariel opposite Tim Crouch’s Prospero in The Tempest at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Shakespeare’s Globe announced the cast for its January–April run. Ariel provides a striking contrast with Molly: the role belongs to a story of enchantment, service and release rather than intelligence bureaucracy. These named stage parts are a better introduction to her range than treating every performance as another version of the archivist.
Where to watch next
In The Outrun (2024), Wirthner appears as Amanda, offering a film connection with fellow Slow Horses performer Saskia Reeves. Wirthner’s official biography also lists Alex Rider and The Continental, the John Wick spin-off. Together those three screen credits give fans a route beyond Molly, spanning a recovery drama, another espionage adaptation and an action franchise.
Questions and answers
Who portrays the archivist Molly Doran?
The performer is Naomi Wirthner; Joanna Scanlan plays Moira Tregorian, a different character.
Has Naomi Wirthner performed Shakespeare?
She played Ariel in the Globe’s 2026 production of The Tempest, staged in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.
Which theatre production introduced her Hardiman?
Her agency identifies Robert Icke’s The Doctor as the production in which she originated that role.