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 Gary Oldman
Interview By: Michael Dance Gary Oldman, a man who's fully earned the title of modern legend, has worn plenty of different hats over his twenty-five year film career. On one hand, he's a reliable Hollywood villain, in everything from the popular (Air Force One) to the unpopular (Lost in Space) to the terrific (The Professional). On another hand, he's also always been able to attach himself to projects that hover somewhere between quirky and prestigious: Sid & Nancy, JFK, and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, for example. And finally, he seems to be approaching household name status thanks to a late-career renaissance in two major franchises: the Harry Potter series, in which he played Sirius Black for three movies, and the Batman franchise. In both Batman Begins and its follow-up The Dark Knight (in theaters now, as if you didn't know), he plays cop and Batman ally Jim Gordon, a pivotal character in the Batman mythos. It's a tribute to Oldman's chameleonic skills that, side by side, you'd be hard-pressed to realize Sirius and Jim are the same person. Oldman's reasons for accepting the role in the Batman franchise boil down to one thing: working with director Christopher Nolan who before taking on Batman cut his teeth on acclaimed thrillers Memento and Insomnia (and since has also directed the mindblower The Prestige). When asked about what style he used to approach his role, Oldman defers to Nolan. "The director sets the tone," Oldman says. "He's the real barometer of how you play your character. There's a realism to Batman, but it's slightly pumped up, slightly heightened. Chris doesn't want that realistic sort of acting that, you know, would be found in a Ken Loach film. You've got to know the style of the piece you're in. Gielgud once said, 'Style is knowing what play you're in.'" The basic appeal of playing Gordon was simple. "What makes it more interesting for me, is that it's interesting against all the other types of characters I've played," Oldman says of his villainous past. "It is nice to play someone who's really the moral center of the piece, someone who's strong and has got great backbone and character, and is virtuous and honest and incorruptible, and all these things that I think Jim Gordon is. All those qualities make him fun to play -- versus some of those other wacky or strange people I've played in the past. This is a conscious decision just to turn the ship around and do other things." The all-star cast, which includes Christian Bale as Batman, Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent, and of course the late Heath Ledger as the Joker was another reason for looking forward to work every day. But working with Bale and Ledger proved to be quite different experiences. "They're two very different people: Christian is darker than Heath," he says. "I know that sounds kind of weird, but he very much keeps to himself. I've never ... |
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