The one movie Gary Oldman hates watching: “If I come upon it, off it goes”
Britain is known for producing some incredibly talented actors, and Gary Oldman is one of the finest examples. Born in London, the actor emerged from working-class beginnings, leaving school when he was 16 to work in a shop. Yet, he knew he was destined for Hollywood, even if the prestigious acting school RADA would swiftly reject him.
Yet, all success stories usually feature some level of failure that one must overcome – a challenge that forces us to consider how much we want what we’re after. Oldman didn’t let his RADA rejection stop him from giving up, so he took himself elsewhere to study and subsequently became an incredibly successful theatre star. By the early 1980s, he had dipped his toes into film, appearing in Colin Gregg’s Remembrance and Mike Leigh’s Meantime.
In the latter, he showed his versatility by playing Coxy, a racist and obnoxious skinhead, which earned him recognition from critics. His next film role would land him further acclaim and make him more well-known among British audiences. However, it’s also a movie that Oldman now can’t stand to watch, going as far as to tell Playboy that he never even wanted to appear in the movie.
Released in 1986, Sid and Nancy was a success, with Oldman playing the volatile bassist of the Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious. With Chloe Webb portraying Nancy Spungen, the pair starred as the tormented lovers whose relationship ends in tragedy after Spungen is found dead in the Hotel Chelsea. Bringing a well-documented and iconic era of British music to the big screen, Oldman’s performance was highly praised. Vicious was an infamous character – one that would have certainly been hard to master.
Sid and Nancy, which won several accolades, including Oldman’s ‘Most Promising Newcomer’ from the Evening Standard British Film Awards, truly marked the actor’s breakthrough. Yet, he admitted that he doesn’t “like myself in the movie”.
He continued, “Frankly, I didn’t want to make it in the first place. I was talked into it at the time. And now, if I flip through the channels and come upon it, it’s ‘Fuck! Sid and Nancy,’ and off it goes. I don’t think I played Sid Vicious very well.”
It seems as though Oldman is hyper-critical of his performances despite the fact that he is held in incredibly high regard.
He also shared that “I don’t like the way I look in Prick Up Your Ears. I wasn’t the right person to play Beethoven [in Immortal Beloved] and turned it down half a dozen times” before claiming that he “can’t bear” The Fifth Element. Evidently, you can be considered one of the greatest individuals within your given industry and still criticise yourself harshly.
Since then, Oldman has won an Oscar for his prosthetics-heavy performance as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, a sharp turn from his days of playing itchy youths like Coxy and Vicious. The actor has appeared in many acclaimed pieces of cinema over the years, like True Romance, Leon, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Dark Knight, and even the Harry Potter series, but who knows which ones he is truly proud of?
