“A moment of spiritual awakening”: How ‘The Raging Moon’ inspired Gary Oldman to become an actor
If you take acting to mean convincingly portraying a large number of different characters, then there’s a strong case that Gary Oldman is one of the greatest actors of all time. The cinematic chameleon has made his fortune disappearing into roles. Often, it’s only possible to tell it’s him by checking the credits after a movie has ended. He is a fabulous performer through and through, a real asset to any project he’s involved in.
Where did it all begin for the affable Brit? He began his involvement with theatre at the Young People’s Theatre in Greenwich in the mid-1970s. He was the first member of his class at Rose Bruford College to land a professional gig, starring in a number of stage productions before making his screen debut in the 1982 drama Remembrance. In terms of that initial spark, however, that came after seeing a now-forgotten film called The Raging Moon.
“Malcolm McDowell plays a sort of Cock o’ the North character, a sporting guy, a bit of a lad with the ladies,” Oldman explained to Playboy. “He comes down with a paralysing disease; it may have been polio. He loses the use of his legs and is confined to a wheelchair and gets shunted off to one of those homes where they look after the disabled. I had never been in a school play, but watching that performance was a sort of moment of spiritual awakening when I thought, I want to do that.”
McDowell’s character, Bruce, ends up in a wheelchair, dejected at his loss of mobility. His mood picks up when he meets Jill, a polio patient played by Nanette Newman. The two embark on a passionate and surprisingly physical relationship, a plot choice that shocked many viewers at the time. Director Bryan Forbes, best known for making The Stepford Wives and acting in The Guns of Navarone, was Newman’s husband at the time.
“We didn’t have any money, but I would generate things,” Oldman said of his next steps following this burst of inspiration. “I was interested in performing, so I inquired at school. My math teacher told me about a local youth theatre, and I went and met the artistic director. I told him I had this sort of ambition to be an actor, and he said, ‘Well, you would have to go to drama school, and you would have to have some pieces to audition.’”
While Oldman never got to be directed by Forbes or share the screen with Newman, he did get his full circle moment on the 2010 film The Book of Eli. Oldman plays a warlord in a post-apocalyptic world, while McDowell has a brief, uncredited cameo as the leader of a rival sanctuary group. It’s never been reported that Oldman had a fanboy moment when he met his muse, but it’s safe to assume there was a healthy amount of internal freaking out.
Every actor has that one film, play or TV show that will always be special to them, even if it remains largely lost to time. The rest of the world will certainly thing of McDowell as Alex from A Clockwork Orange, to Oldman, he will always be that young man in a wheelchair who gave him the push to follow his dreams.
