The 2005 movie Gary Oldman rejected to avoid breaking the law: “Out of respect and solidarity”
Imagine getting the chance of a lifetime, but then the law has to stop you in your tracks. That’s crushing, but it’s a pain known all too well by Gary Oldman.
Of course, the times when massive parts come knocking are hardly few and far between for the veteran actor, but even the most pretentious and civilised thespians can’t help but be reduced to excited children when they get the chance to play out their lifelong dreams. It’s the roles that take them straight back to their first trip to the cinema, or their family home front room, and their first memories of life. It’s priceless.
Then, depressingly, politics and bureaucracy are forced to get in the way. You can only imagine that when Oldman got a call-up asking him to join the Star Wars franchise in the early 2000s, his anticipation levels might have hit the roof. As a young man making his way into the world in the late 1970s, the explosion of the sci-fi franchise onto the screen was bound to have captured his wildest imagination, just as it did everybody else’s.
The better part of three decades later, when the phone did finally ring in 2004 for the part of General Grievous in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Oldman was all but ready to sign on the dotted line. However, much like the darker forces that come into play in the film itself, some far murkier realities began to surface.
The main stipulation centred on the fact that the movie wasn’t being made in agreement with the Screen Actors Guild, the actors’ union of which Oldman was a member. Obviously, if he were a big enough fan of Star Wars, the choice would have been painstaking. But ultimately, Oldman acts as a man of principle. He was not going to disobey the rules he had signed up to.
And so, the statement had to be made by his publicist. “Gary was excited and looking forward to working on the film,” they told the Daily Star. “The snag is that the movie is being made without members of the Screen Actors Guild. It means Gary would have been working illegally overseas”.
“Out of respect and solidarity with the other members, he could not and would not consider violating the rules of his union.”
It was a noble sacrifice to make, not to mention one that saw Oldman keep his credibility in a wash of other stars who would throw everything and the kitchen sink to even get a second’s screen time in a franchise like that. In this sense, it was clear that he felt he didn’t particularly need it, despite how exciting the prospect may have been. The more important thing was to keep respect on his name.
Oddly enough, however, this story is not as straightforward as it seems. The actor who went on to voice the iconic villain, Matthew Wood, disputed Oldman dropping out of the film inasmuch as he was rejected from his audition for the part, thus seemingly calling into question what the truth of the matter really was.
Whatever the case, Oldman never made his sci-fi villain debut, went on to have a stint in Harry Potter instead, and then started hauling in the Oscar nominations in the years that followed. In many ways, what position would you rather be in? Playing a headless baddie brandishing a glow-in-the-dark stick, or mixing with the crème de la crème of the film world? Surely it’s no competition.
