The movie that saw Gary Oldman hit rock bottom: “I’d been so unprofessional”
You’d surely think that Hollywood is the last place you’d want to be unprofessional due to the competitive and fiercely cutthroat nature of the industry, but many actors and filmmakers have routinely expressed rather improper behaviour while on set. It seems as though this is a testament to the pressure that the industry inspires among its patrons, which even the most dedicated of stars have struggled to cope with.
Gary Oldman is no stranger to the struggles of balancing a successful career in the spotlight with personal difficulties, and during the 1990s, he openly admitted to being an alcoholic. While facing substance abuse issues is undoubtedly tough on its own, the fact that Oldman did so while being one of Hollywood’s most well-known actors surely took its toll.
“When I was drinking, I was working and I was remembering lines, so you feel you’re getting away with it, though, deep down, beneath the denial, you know. I would sit down and tell the waiter, ‘I’ll have a large vodka tonic. And can you bring it now, because I’m an alcoholic. I need it quicker’,” he admitted to the LA Times.
The actor eventually curbed his addiction, but it was an active part of his life while he was working on many movies, and in some cases, he found himself showing up to work in a rather unprofessional state. While filming the critically derided 1995 movie The Scarlet Letter, Oldman acknowledges that he kept showing up to set under the influence of alcohol, which he looks back on with regret.
The film, which co-starred Demi Moore and Robert Duvall, earned many bad reviews, as well as seven Razzie nominations, including ‘Worst Screen Combo’ for ‘Demi Moore and either Robert Duvall or Gary Oldman’. The Scarlet Letter simply failed to charm viewers, and many have even labelled it as one of the worst movies of all time.
Talking to Radio Times, the actor revealed that the period of filming the movie was pretty much rock bottom for him: “I think the worst thing you can do is inspire disappointment. I was in The Scarlet Letter with Demi Moore, and I had intermittent bouts of boozing during filming.” He continued, “It was towards the end of [my drinking] where I thought, ‘If I carry on like this…’ I was in a very dark place. I drank too much in the lunch hour. It was such a destructive thing. I got back on the set to do quite a big scene, and I got through it.”
Despite being drunk, he managed to film this important scene, although Moore was not exactly impressed: “You wouldn’t really know, but I was quite tipsy. And the next day, I said to her, ‘I’m so sorry, you must hate me.’ I was mortified that I’d been so unprofessional. And she said to me, ‘I don’t hate you. It’s OK. I’m just disappointed.’”
The same year that Oldman filmed the movie, he checked himself into rehab, no longer wanting to send himself into such a dangerous spiral. Luckily, he came out of the other side much stronger, and within a few years, he had directed his first feature film, Nil By Mouth, which earned widespread acclaim.
