Gary Oldman has explained the popularity of his Apple TV series, Slow Horses.

The Oscar winner believes the Apple TV spy thriller's lack of glamour is the key to its success.

"This is ordinary people doing heroic things," Gary, 67, told the Today show, before comparing the gritty, down-at-heel drama with flashier spy franchises.

"I think (audiences) have a connection to it rather than being removed if you're watching say The Bourne Identity or Bond, with their casinos and tuxedos. These are people having problems with their marriage and alcoholic issues or going through a divorce or only seeing their kids at the weekend, and they go to the laundrette and do these things that we can relate to."

He added that novelist Mick Herron, whose books the series is based on, was able to offer audiences "a world that we're very familiar with but turns it on its head, and that's something we can recognise... that's the appeal."

In the show, Gary plays the lead spy in a team of disgraced MI5 operatives who have been sequestered together in a rundown office after failing in their previous roles.

The actor was knighted by King Charles III on 30 September for his services to British acting.

"I think I feel very honoured, very humbled and flattered, I think in equal measure," he told PA news agency at the time. "It compares to nothing else. I thought the Oscar was a big deal. No disrespect to the Academy, but it sort of pales in comparison to this. It's just been wonderful."