Gary Oldman
Gary Leonard Oldman (born 21 March 1958) is an English actor and filmmaker. Known for his versatility and intense acting style, he has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and three British Academy Film Awards. His films have grossed over $11 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing actors of all time.[1]
Not to be confused with Gary Coleman or Gary Goldman.
Gary Oldman
21 March 1958
- Actor
- filmmaker
1979–present
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Donya Fiorentino(m. 1997; div. 2001)
-
Alexandra Edenborough(m. 2008; div. 2015)
-
Gisele Schmidt(m. 2017)
3
Laila Morse (sister)
Oldman began acting in theatre in 1979 and made his film debut in Remembrance (1982). He appeared in London's Royal Court and was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, with credits including Cabaret, Romeo and Juliet, Entertaining Mr Sloane, Saved, The Country Wife and Hamlet. He rose to prominence in British film with his portrayals of Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy (1986), Joe Orton in Prick Up Your Ears (1987) and Rosencrantz in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990), and gained recognition for his role in the television film The Firm (1989). Regarded as a member of the "Brit Pack",[2] he achieved greater recognition as a New York gangster in State of Grace (1990), Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK (1991) and Count Dracula in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).
Oldman portrayed villainous roles in True Romance (1993), Léon: The Professional (1994), The Fifth Element (1997), Air Force One (1997) and The Contender (2000). He has also played franchise roles such as Sirius Black in the Harry Potter series, James "Jim" Gordon in The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005–2012), Lord Shen in Kung Fu Panda 2 and Dreyfus in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014). He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour (2017), and was nominated for his portrayals of George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) and Herman J. Mankiewicz in Mank (2020).
Oldman also wrote and directed the film Nil by Mouth (1997). Since 2022, he has starred in the Apple TV+ series Slow Horses. He also earned a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for his role on the NBC sitcom Friends in 2001. He has also appeared in music videos for David Bowie, Guns N' Roses and Annie Lennox.
Early life and education
Gary Leonard Oldman[3] was born in New Cross, London, on 21 March 1958,[4][5] the son of Leonard Bertram Oldman (1921–1985), a former sailor who also worked as a welder, and Kathleen (née Cheriton; 1919–2018).[6][7] He said his father was an alcoholic who left the family when Oldman was seven years old.[8] His older sister, Maureen, is an actress better known as Laila Morse; she performed in Oldman's directorial debut Nil by Mouth (1997), before taking on her most famous role of Mo Harris in the BBC soap opera EastEnders.[9]
Oldman attended West Greenwich School in Deptford, leaving at the age of 16 to work in a sports shop.[10] He played piano as a child, but he gave up his musical aspirations to pursue an acting career after seeing Malcolm McDowell's performance in the film The Raging Moon (1971).[11][12][13] In a 1995 interview with Charlie Rose, he said, "Something about Malcolm just arrested me, and I connected, and I said, 'I wanna do that.'"[11]
Growing up in south London, Oldman supported his local football club, Millwall, but also followed Manchester United because he idolised George Best.[9] In 2011, he learned from his mother that his father had played for Millwall just after World War II: "Just after the war, [my mother] ran a boarding house for football players—Millwall players. And I knew that my dad was involved somehow with the reserve team. But two weeks ago my mum said, 'Oh yeah, your dad played for Millwall. When he was young he had a couple of first team games.'"[9]
Oldman studied with the Young People's Theatre in Greenwich during the mid-1970s,[6][14] while working jobs on assembly lines, as a porter in an operating theatre, selling shoes and beheading pigs in an abattoir.[6] He applied unsuccessfully to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), which welcomed him to try again the following year, but advised him to find something else to do for a living.[6][11] When asked by Charlie Rose if he had reminded RADA of this, Oldman joked that "the work speaks for itself".[11]
He won a scholarship to attend the Rose Bruford College in Sidcup, south-east London, from which he graduated with a BA in Acting in 1979.[6][14] Oldman described himself as a "shy" but diligent worker during his time there, performing roles such as Puck in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.[15]
Other work
Filmmaking
In 1997, Oldman directed, produced, and wrote the award-winning Nil by Mouth, a film partially based on his recollections of a child he knew in school.[113] Nil by Mouth went on to win the BAFTA Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film (shared with Douglas Urbanski and Luc Besson) and also the BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay, the Channel 4 Director's Award, and an Empire Award. In 1999, it was adjudged by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts as one of the hundred best British films of the 20th century.[114] Nil By Mouth was listed by Time Out as number twenty-one of the top 100 best British films.[115]
Oldman and producing partner Douglas Urbanski formed the SE8 GROUP to produce Nil by Mouth. The company also produced The Contender, which also starred Oldman. He completed a screenplay, Chang & Eng, co-written with Darin Strauss, based on the author's book of the same name. In September 2006, Nokia Nseries Studio[116] released the Oldman-directed short film Donut, with music by Tor Hyams. The film was shot with an N93 to promote the phone. Juliet Landau made a 25-minute documentary about the making of the video. In 2011, he directed a music video for then-wife Alex Eden's first single, "Kiss Me Like the Woman You Loved".
Music
Oldman has had a keen interest in music from an early age. He is a proficient pianist and stated in a 1995 interview with Charlie Rose that he would rather be a musician than an actor.[11] Oldman sang several tracks on the Sid and Nancy soundtrack, on which he performed alongside original Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock, and sang and played live piano in the 1988 movie Track 29. He traced over Beethoven compositions in 1994's Immortal Beloved,[11] and tutored Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe on bass guitar.[117] Oldman appeared on Reeves Gabrels's album The Sacred Squall of Now, performing a vocal duet with David Bowie on the track "You've Been Around".[118] He produced a live performance by former White Stripes member Jack White in conjunction with Vevo and YouTube.[119] At the 2016 Brit Awards in London, Oldman paid tribute to Bowie, before receiving the Brits "Icon Award" on behalf of the singer and his family.[120]
Voice acting
Oldman participated in the creation of The Legend of Spyro games, produced by Sierra Entertainment. He provided the voice of the Fire Guardian, Ignitus. He voices Sergeant Viktor Reznov and scientist Daniel Clarke in the Call of Duty games. He also provides the narration of Sergeant Jack Barnes in the Spearhead expansion for Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. In 2015 he voiced Lord Vortech, the evil mastermind who seeks to control the LEGO Multiverse, in the Lego Dimensions video game.[121] He will play Admiral Ernst Bishop in the upcoming single-player campaign of the Chris Roberts-designed crowdfunded video game, Squadron 42.[122]
Writing
In 2015, Oldman and his manager Douglas Urbanski signed a deal with the Simon & Schuster/Atria Publishing label Emily Bestler Books for Blood Riders, a vampire book series.[123]
Personal life
Views and lifestyle
After establishing himself as an actor, Oldman moved to Los Angeles in the early 1990s.[36] He employs no publicist and does not go to parties, telling an interviewer in 2007 that he has "dinner at home every night with my kids."[36] In 2014, he described himself as a libertarian.[193]
Oldman's alcoholism was well known during the early 1990s; he was arrested for drunk driving in 1991[194] and checked himself into rehab in 1994.[14][194] In subsequent interviews, he acknowledged his problems with alcohol and called himself a recovering alcoholic in a 2001 interview with Charlie Rose.[195] He now lives a teetotal lifestyle (he has been sober since 1997[196]) and attributes his success in beating his addiction to attending meetings with Alcoholics Anonymous, which he has publicly praised.[197]
Marriages and family
Oldman has been married five times. He wed English actress Lesley Manville in 1987, and their son, Alfie, was born the following year.[9] Oldman broke up with Manville in 1989, three months after their son was born.[198] She stated in 2018 that they are on good terms, saying, "[H]e's got a new wife, and we all get on... Gary and I are friends."[199] They have two grandchildren, Matilda and Ozzy Oldman, through Alfie.[200]
Oldman met American actress Uma Thurman on the set of State of Grace; they were married in 1990, but divorced in 1992.[201] From 1994 to 1996, he was engaged to Italian actress and model Isabella Rossellini, his co-star in Immortal Beloved, but they never wed.[194]
From 1997 to 2001, Oldman was married to American model Donya Fiorentino (sister of actress Linda Fiorentino[202]), with whom he had two sons: Gulliver (born 1997) and Charlie (born 1999).[9] Oldman was investigated and cleared of a domestic assault allegation made by Fiorentino during the pair's divorce, receiving sole legal and physical child custody;[203][204] Fiorentino was granted limited, state-supervised contact dependent on her passing drug and alcohol tests.[82][204] In 2003, a judge reduced her access to the children after dismissing claims that Oldman had drugged and physically abused them.[205][206] In 2018, Gulliver, whom Fiorentino claimed had witnessed the alleged domestic assault, lamented the "pain and hardship" caused by his mother's "lies" over the years, while specifically condemning the media's "disgusting" perpetuation of the assault allegation.[207]
On 31 December 2008, Oldman married English singer and actress Alexandra Edenborough in Santa Barbara, California.[208] Edenborough filed for divorce on 9 January 2015;[209] the divorce was finalised in September 2015.[210] In August 2017, Oldman married writer and art curator Gisele Schmidt in a private ceremony at the home of his manager, Douglas Urbanski.[211]