Gary Oldman

Born in New Cross (London) on March 21, 1958, Leonard Gary Oldman is the son of a humble welder and a housewife. He had a tough childhood, due to financial problems and family conflicts. But he was a good student and won a scholarship to study dramatic art -because he had always been passionate about cinema and theater- at the Rose Brudford Drama College. In the early 1980s he performed many plays, as a member of the Greenwich Young People’s Theater group. He received the British Theater Association’s Best Actor Award in 1985 for his work in “The Pope’s Wedding”.

In cinema, he began with a small role in the drama Remembrance , and after the occasional supporting role, he was offered the leading role in Alex Cox ‘s Sid and Nancy , where he played a real character, Sid Vicious, the legendary singer of the Sex Pistols. , known for his heroin addiction. The actor dazzled the viewers with his impressive characterization, as he lost a lot of weight to resemble the character as much as possible. Without a doubt, it was quite a declaration of intent of what his career was going to be.

He radically changed register when playing another real character, the homosexual writer Joe Orton, in Open Your Ears , by Stephen Frears , where actor Alfred Molina also did a memorable job , as his lover.

He made his Hollywood film debut starring in Martin Campbell ‘s thriller Criminal Law . She’s always been pretty good at picking high-quality titles, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead , playwright Tom Stoppard ‘s debut feature , and Phil Joanou ‘s memorable film noir The Clan of the Irish . Although he was surrounded by “actors” none other than Sean Penn and Ed Harris , Oldman took the cake as an aggressive, hard-drinking, violent mobster.

After literally transforming himself into Lee Harvey Oswald in Oliver Stone ‘s JFK , Gary Oldman established himself at the hands of Francis Ford Coppola , who made him the main character in Bram Stoker ‘s Dracula . He did an impressive job as the famous vampire, which he gave a romantic touch to, in addition to the fact that he spoke with a perfect Romanian accent and became an old man in some sequences.

The Frenchman Luc Besson took advantage of his ability to compose villains, in The Professional (León) and The Fifth Element . His characters in Point Blank Love –a violent camel–, Murder in the First Degree –a sadistic Alcatraz warden–, Air Force One –a Russian terrorist– or Hannibal , where he was simply unrecognizable as Mason Verger, disfigured, were also in the same vein. millionaire who wanted revenge on the character of Anthony Hopkins. “I was happy to find out that he was going to work with Gary Oldman, since I know that he is a man who is open to all kinds of make-up experimentation. I thought you wouldn’t mind applying all kinds of prosthetics. Then he came to see me excited and he told me that he had thought that he would staple his eyelids together, so that he would appear to lack them. He scared me,” commented Greg Cannon, the film’s makeup designer.

He rarely escaped this type of characters, as in the case of Immortal Love , where he was Ludwig Van Beethoven himself . In Candidate for Power he did a great job as chairman of the committee tasked with confirming a senator as vice president, even though he ended up using an episode from the past against her.

The performance that has required the most physical effort on the part of Gary Oldman was the one he gave in the Matthew Bright film Tiptoes , where he played Rolfe, a dwarf. To do this, he lost 15 kilos, and daily used a harness to hide his legs that kept him crouched in an exhausting posture. Apparently, his legs were numb, and he only managed to return to normal with the help of ice.

Among so many performances, he had time to take his first steps as a director, with Nil by Mouth , a very tough drama inspired by his own childhood.

In the 21st century, Gary Oldman has taken a couple of jobs in mass-produced blockbusters. He was the prisoner of Azkaban, Sirius Black, in three Harry Potter films. And he surprised audiences more than ever as Commissioner Gordon in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight , especially since few had ever seen him play a normal person. He’s back to being another villain, playing a chieftain, in The Book of Eli .

Although he has always been very reserved in relation to his private life, in the 80s he gave rise to numerous rumors about his addiction to alcohol. His sentimental life has not been very stable. After divorcing actress Lesley Manville , with whom he had a son, he married Uma Thurman , but the marriage did not last two years. He has since been with the photographer Donya Fiorentino, with whom he had two other children, and finally with the jazz singer Alexandra Edenborough.