“It was fun for a while”: how two words changed Gary Oldman’s career forever
It’s easy to get typecast in Hollywood, even if you’re one of the most versatile and impressive actors of your generation. Take Gary Oldman, for instance, an Oscar-winning acting icon who still hasn’t been able to escape being seen as a classic villain.
The thing is, he burst onto the scene with some rather controversial roles, from a racist punk in Mike Leigh’s Meantime to the snarling bassist Sid Vicious in the punk biopic Sid and Nancy from Alex Cox. As he made his way into Hollywood in the 1990s, the actor took on some relatively high-profile roles as antagonists, building up quite the reputation as a go-to actor for terrifying characters.
Oldman just seems to have a knack for getting into the headspace of a character with little empathy and plenty of evil within them, playing everyone from Lee Harvey Oswald to Count Dracula. With the latter, starring in Bram Stoker’s Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola, Oldman got a little too into character, isolating Winona Ryder in his quest to play the character as good as he possibly could.
She found him hard to work with, once explaining that “it wasn’t the same after we started shooting. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s his way of working, but I felt like there was a danger.” Ryder even recalled that Keanu Reeves was her only respite during the shoot, with Oldman clearly taking his villainous role a little too far – although how, we can’t be too sure.
Oldman played one of his most iconic villains in True Romance, sporting a glassy eye, a golden grill, and dreadlocks to play the pimp Drexl Spivey, who ultimately meets his demise at the hands of Christian Slater’s Clarence. The actor morphed into an unrecognisable antagonist, equally as terrifying as he was strangely amusing.
There was no sign of Oldman stopping his evil streak as the years went by, with his corrupt DEA agent Norman Stansfield in Leon: The Professional standing out as another highlight in his career. Of course, he can do so much more than a scary role, but it seemed to be what he loved doing the most.
That’s until he was called “Scary Gary” by a certain Hollywood icon, which made him rethink his career choices. Maybe he needed to expand his acting roles a bit, because he is certainly capable of playing good characters – Oldman isn’t necessarily a scary guy in real life.
Talking to theartsdesk, Oldman expanded on the moment that he decided to step back from this archetype, although it’s not something he has ever totally given up on. Referring to his performance in Batman Begins as the protagonist’s loyal ally, James Gordon, Oldman said, “I decided not to play villains after that. It was fun for a while, until Harrison Ford started calling me Scary Gary. That was his nickname for me.”
Oldman has continued to play controversial characters that tow the line between being strictly good or bad, like Sirius Black in the Harry Potter series, but he has ultimately stepped away from playing people as ruthless as Drexl or Norman – he’s had enough of that.
