Gary Oldman: The acting chameleon turns 65

Gary Oldman: The acting chameleon turns 65

Gary Oldman is considered one of the best actors ever. Today the Briton, who has been subscribed to villain roles for a long time, is 65 years old.

Born in London on March 21, 1958, Gary Oldman (65) is undoubtedly one of the greatest actors of his generation. The star will probably soon be giving up his long and distinguished career. “I don’t want to be active when I’m 80,” said Oldman, who celebrates his 65th birthday today.

The acting chameleon added, “I’ve had an enviable career, but careers are dwindling and I have other things that interest me outside of acting.” Oldman fans don’t have to despair immediately, however, because the fascinating actor can still be seen in the agent series “Slow Horses – A Case for Jackson Lamb” on the Apple TV+ streaming service.

The “Slough House” book series by template author Mick Herron (59) has a total of seven entries. The streaming service Apple TV + has already ordered a third and fourth “Slow Horses” season. So, based on the book, Oldman could go on playing main character Jackson Lamb for a while longer – – a “raw, farting, drinking, smoking, non-politically correct, overweight, ill-dressed” man with “greasy hair and bad teeth.”

“He’s great,” Oldman says of what may be his final role.

Subscribed to Villain Characters

Oldman is a child of the British working class. The father was an alcoholic and left the family early. After a difficult start to his career – he worked as a shoe seller and in a slaughterhouse to finance his acting studies – Oldman established himself as a theater actor and was a member of the renowned Royal Shakespeare Company for a year from 1985.

Oldman became a star as punk legend Sid Vicious (1957-1979) in the cult biopic “Sid & Nancy” (1986) by director Alex Cox (68). According to the actor, he almost didn’t accept the iconic role – and it already offered a small foretaste of the following decade, when Oldman seemed subscribed to the character of the psychotic villain in major film productions.

Those villain characters he frequently embodied, , would “burn from the first bar, they’re like rock ‘n’ roll”.

After moving to the United States in the early 1990s, Oldman took part in a whole series of wonderful film projects such as “State of Grace” (German title: “Im Vorhof der Hölle”, 1990), “JFK: Tatort Dallas” (1991) , “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1992) or “True Romance” (1993).

Oldman’s most well-known roles from the nineties are probably those of the drug-addicted DEA agent Norman Stansfield from Luc Besson’s (63) classic film “Léon – Der Profi” (1994) and the villain Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg from Besson’s brilliant sci-fi Fireworks “The Fifth Element” (1997). Especially the embodiment of the last two mentioned villains seemed to be downright thieving fun for the actor, who is also known for his overacting.

“I used to sweat out vodka”

Oldman, who has been married five times, keeps his private life out of the press as much as possible – and is therefore rather untypical for Hollywood. Among other things, he was married to Uma Thurman (52) from 1990 to 1992 and brought three children into the world.

Alongside this, Oldman waged a long battle with alcoholism. “I used to sweat vodka out of it,” adding, “While I was drinking, I was working and I could remember my lines of dialogue, so I felt like I could get away with it, but deep down, beneath the disbelief, I knew Notice”.

By his own admission, Oldman has been sober since 1997.

“Harry Potter”, Batman and the overdue Oscar

In the 2000s, Oldman was increasingly seen in franchises and big Hollywood blockbusters. He embodied the character Sirius Black in a total of four “Harry Potter” films from 2004 to 2011, and played Commissioner Gordon in the “Dark Knight” trilogy by master director Christopher Nolan (52), which was released between 2005 and 2012.

Oldman was nominated for an Oscar for the first time in 2012 for his portrayal of the main character George Smiley in the spy film masterpiece Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. In retrospect, the decades-long non-consideration by the Oscar Academy is almost a scandal and seems “incomprehensible”, as Oldman’s compatriot and fellow actor Colin Firth (62) found. “I think he should have won seven times by now”, .

In 2018 it finally worked out with the longed-for Oscar. Oldman won Best Actor for his portrayal of Winston Churchill (1874-1965) in The Darkest Hour. Another – again unsuccessful – nomination followed in 2021 for the Netflix film “Mank” by David Fincher (60), which is well worth seeing, in which Oldman and Herman J. Mankiewicz (1897-1953) played the heavily drinking screenwriter of “Citizen Kane”. plays.

Source: Stern

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest Posts