Gary Oldman – Long Before He Won the Oscar

June 20, 2020 149 Comments

October 1995 By Philip Berk

Isabella Rossellini admitted that before meeting Gary Oldman she made the mistake of confusing him with the roles he played. “I thought he was going to be very intense, a tormented character, but I was totally surprised on first meeting him to discover somebody so warm, so friendly, so polite, so delicate and so full of a sense of humor.” 

In his latest movie The Scarlet Letter in which he plays opposite Demi Moore, you’ll see a romantic side to him that he’s never shown before.

At his press conference for the film at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York, I asked him if he liked this new on-screen image, and he’s fully prepared for this question.

“There’s a strange perception of me out in the world. Playing a romantic role opposite Demi Moore is a change from playing maniacs, crazy policemen, and psychopaths. I was very grateful for the chance to do something that took me away from that, and as much fun as they are, I think this is the nearest role I’ve had  to me,  to Gary.”

Better known to film directors (Oliver Stone and Francis Coppola among them) than audiences, Oldman has that chameleon-like ability to play anything from an Albino Rastafarian in True Romance to a snarling monster in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

In person, despite a pronounced weak chin, he’s quite nice looking. Audiences have seen him in so many disguises — he’s specialized in playing real life characters like Lee Harvey Oswald (in JFK) Joe Orton (in Prick Up Your Ears) Sid Vicious (in Sid and Nancy) and Ludwig von Beethoven in Immortal Beloved — they might have trouble accepting him as a romantic lead.

But for a number of famous actresses, that has never been a problem. His first marriage was to Lesley Manley (an actress he met at the Royal Court Theatre in London and the mother of his only child). After that ended, he married actress Uma Thurman. Their much publicized union also ended in divorce. Last year he met Isabella Rossellini during the filming of Immortal Beloved. Before the film was completed, they made plans to marry but for reasons still unexplained they never have.

I once asked Uma if marriage between two actors is doomed to failure, and she angrily replied, “Your very personal question is as small as the people who uphold such an idea. I would hope that any two people that choose to love each other can find a way to do it. I don’t think relationships between two actors should be treated with any more drama than one involving a steel worker. That too has its challenge even though I can’t speak from personal experience.”

And then without further prompting, she added, “Gary is wonderful. I was very young and it didn’t work out. A lot of people who get married when they’re nineteen years old don’t stay married. I don’t think what happened to us had anything to do with the film industry.”

Last year Isabella, who was very much in love with him at the time, admitted that she had fallen in love with him on the set, “But I think I would have fallen in love with Gary if I had met him here at the Four Seasons Hotel or at  friends’. It was just, we liked each other. It just happened in Prague, it just happened during the film.”

Since then, there have been published reports about his alcoholism, his cooling off at a rehab center, and regrettably the end of the relationship.

But Gary denies it.

When I ask him how  things were going, he replied, “Very well thanks. Yeah, things are good on the home front.”

How did it happen?

“I met her on Immortal Beloved and I guess it’s no accident that we go out with actresses, that’s all we see, and I thought she was awfully nice so I took her home. And there’s nothing more to say.” 

Professionally, his bio suggests that he’s worked hard to achieve international acclaim, but he sums it up in two sentences. “I studied for three years at a drama school in London and then I went into the theater and spent seven years on the stage. I was lucky enough to be cast as Sid Vicious and fortunate enough to play Joe Orton, two roles I played back to back, which was a strange, weird coincidence, and since then I’ve worked steadily in films.” 

His latest, The Scarlet Letter, is surely his most cpmmercial.

Does it bother him that the film takes egregious liberties with the book, acknowledged the world over as an American classic? 

Instread of responding to the question he reflects, “Isn’t it nice to go and see a movie that deals with love and honesty and tenderness. I think that’s refreshing. I think it’s a good old fashioned love story.”

Not in the least bit embarrassed?

“Once you commit to something,  you have to work within that framework or not be a part of it. You have to embrace the idea. At the end of the day that’s all you’ve got. You go on a ride and do the best you can.”

Is playing a role like that as rewarding as say playing Joe Orton in  Prick Up Your Ears?

“They all have a different rhythm, a different energy. We’re like a troupe of actors, it’s strange sometimes, we’re like the circus that goes through town. It’s like you’re driving along a road and you hit a kid and you go, ‘Sorry, movie people,’ you know,  ‘Movie people coming through.’ It goes back to the time of vagabonds and roaming gypsies. We’re a troupe of players.” 

Why does he think the character he plays in Scarlet Letter is closer to him than any he’s previously played?

“As I said before, there’s a certain perception of me out there — and I’m not talking about what you may or may not have read about me in the newspapers from time to time — people link me with the characters I play, so there’s this perception that he must be a maniac, he must be crazy, he must be this, he must be that. And I’m not. I’m rather tender and loving  and sweet. And those are the qualities I loved about Arthur (the character he plays.) I tried to invest him with those qualities and for me it’s a very honest performance.”

In the movie (and the book) Arthur has a deep dark secret.

Does he share his pain?

“We all share it on varying levels. We’re all crazy and mixed up. Whether people turn to drink or drugs, whether it’s co-dependancy, or spending money they don’t have, or overeating, or child abuse, it all kind of comes out. What I’m trying to say is, yes I have pain but I’m not special and unique. We all have that. I have a job that requires me to store all that up and then use it. No matter what character you’re playing, no matter how much plastic you have on your face, the whole bag of tricks is a facility. That’s Gary crying because everything ultimately has my signature on it; you can’t get away from it. You invest a character with a great deal of you because that is all you have. I don’t play the piano, I don’t interpret a piece of music though the violin. I use me, and therefore I draw a lot from my own life.”

So the challenge (to give a great performance) is always the same?

“Each character that you do, each film that you do, sets up its own set of hurdles that you have to kind of jump over. I don’t know if one was more challenging than the other. I found this one very easy in terms of my own personal struggle, and it was made doubly enjoyable because of Demi (Moore.) I mean it was a tough movie, but we had a lot of laughs along the way.”

Was (director) Roland Joffe a factor in choosing this part?

“Actually, when I got the call saying that they wanted me for this romantic lead, I was staggered. And when I found out that Demi was already attached, I said fantastic, terrific, and we were just thrown into it, we met and we all hit it off.”

Having worked with Francis Coppola on Dracula, what was that experience like?

“Francis was unique. He gave us the opportunity to just experiment. He invited  us all to his Napa farm for a week, we had great food, great wine, we rehearsed a little bit. We were given this huge playground. Normally you get very little rehearsal when you work on a movie. We had time to read the book, play theatre games, and be like a troupe of players. Then we returned to LA where we had two more weeks of rehearsal so that by the time we started shooting, it was like we were making the film a second  time.”

Only once during the interview, did he let down his guard, and that was when someone asked him about his nude scene in Scarlet Letter, when he dives into an icy river. 

How cold was it? 

Using his thumb and index finger he gestured, “It was about that cold.” 

And what’s next for the actor?

“I’m hoping a long planned project, one that I wrote five years ago, will get made next year. (The French director) Luc Besson is helping me raise the money.”

Besson directed Gary in The Professional and the two of them will work together when Gary plays the villain once again in The Fifth Element, which ironically stars Demi’s husband Bruce Willis.

What is his script about?

“Dysfunction, alcoholism, co-dependence, and women, the things I’m familiar with.”

And will he star in it.

“No, I’m not even in it.”

Eight years ago he said he didn’t want to act anymore. Is that still true?

“I’m tired of it, I guess, I don’t know what it is, the passion is going. If I could win the lottery I’d probably never do it again.”

What can he do about it?

“I’d could visit India, go on a spiritual search. I need to give my will over to something more powerful than me. I don’t believe there’s any other way to do it. Maybe I’m too nice. I find it terribly hard to hurt people or even be firm with them. I’m wonderfully good at hurting me.”

And with that the interview was over.

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