Gary Oldman

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Gary Oldman
File:Oldman2.jpg
Gary Oldman and Uma Thurman in 1992.
Born
Leonard Gary Oldman
Spouse(s)Lesley Manville (1988-1990)
Uma Thurman (1990-1992)
Donya Fiorentino (1997-2001)
AwardsSaturn Award for Best Actor
1992 Dracula

Leonard Gary Oldman (born March 21, 1958) is an English actor, writer and director, best known as lead and supporting actor of many major Hollywood films of the 1980's and 1990's, in which he often stars as the primary antagonist.[1] Perhaps his most famous performance is his leading role as Count Dracula in Francis Ford Coppola's romance-horror blockbuster Dracula,[2] for which he won the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films' Saturn Award for best actor. Oldman's films, in total, have grossed over $1.8 billion in the United States, and over $4.6 billion worldwide.[3]

Oldman initially came to prominence for his portrayal of the Sex Pistols' ill-fated bassist Sid Vicious in Sid & Nancy, and has since garnered critical acclaim for his diversity of roles and mastery of world accents.[4] He is known for his apathetic stance towards celebrity and the ideals of Hollywood.[5] In recent years Oldman is best known for his roles as Hannibal Lecter's nemesis, Mason Verger in Ridley Scott's Hannibal, Sirius Black in the Harry Potter film series and Commissioner James Gordon in Christopher Nolan's critically and commercially acclaimed Batman Begins, a role he is set to reprise in the forthcoming sequel, The Dark Knight. He also appeared in two episodes of Friends in 2001, for which he received an Emmy Award nomination.

As well as an accomplished actor, Oldman is also an acclaimed writer and director; his 1997 foray into writing and directing, Nil By Mouth, won the 1997 BAFTA Award for Best British Film.

Biography

Early life

Oldman was born Leonard Gary Oldman in New Cross, London, England, the son of Kathleen, an Irish-born homemaker, and Len Oldman, a former sailor who worked as a welder.[6][7] Oldman has said that his father was an abusive alcoholic who left his family when Oldman was seven.[8] Oldman was an accomplished singer and pianist as a child, but gave up music to pursue an acting career.[9] His inspiration was Malcolm McDowell's performance in 1970 movie The Raging Moon.[10] In a 1995 interview with Charlie Rose, Oldman said: "Something about Malcolm [McDowell] just arrested me, and I connected, and I said 'I wanna do that.'"[11] Oldman retained his love for music, however, and can be seen singing and playing piano in the 1988 movie Track 29, and tracing over pre-recorded versions of Beethoven's music on Immortal Beloved.

Theater

Oldman won a scholarship to the Rose Bruford College, where he received a BA in Drama in 1979. He had initially applied for enrollment into Britain's prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, but was refused entry and told to "find something else to do for a living". Often quizzed about it in retrospect, his highly successful career considered, he has stated that "the work speaks for itself." Following his graduation from Rose Bruford College, he later studied with the Greenwich Young People's Theatre and went on to appear in a number of stage plays including The Pope's Wedding, for which he received Time Out's Fringe Award for Best Newcomer of 1985 - 1986 and the British Theatre Association's Drama Magazine Award as Best Actor of 1985.

Film roles

Oldman first appeared on screen in the film Remembrance in 1982, going on to win his first starring role in Sid and Nancy (1986), in which he played the Sex Pistols' ill-fated bassist Sid Vicious. As well as Vicious, Oldman has portrayed a number of significant historical figures including composer Ludwig Van Beethoven in Immortal Beloved and Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK.Other notable credits include Joe Orton, James Gordon, Dr. Zachary Smith, Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz, Pontius Pilate, and the Devil. He is known for his portrayals of many memorable Hollywood villains, including the titular character in vampire (Bram Stoker's Dracula), a pimp (True Romance), a disfigured paedophile (Hannibal), a futuristic megacorp tyrant (The Fifth Element), a corrupt DEA officer (Léon), a sadistic prison warden (Murder in the First), a terrorist (Air Force One), a presidential assassin (JFK), and a violent football hooligan (The Firm).

Oldman collected the Saturn Award for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of Dracula. He also received an Emmy Award nomination for two guest appearances in Friends in 2001, appearing in the two-part episode "The One with Monica and Chandler's Wedding" as Richard Crosby, a pedantic actor who insists that "true" actors spit on one another when they enunciate, leading to the famous spitting scene between Joey (Matt LeBlanc) and himself. Oldman agreed to appear in the episode after meeting Leblanc on the set of Lost in Space in 1998.


Oldman has received more recent acclaim in his recent films, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) as Sirius Black; as well as the extremely successful Batman Begins (2005) and the upcoming The Dark Knight (2008).

Film-making

In 1997, Oldman directed, produced, and wrote Nil by Mouth, reportedly based on his life. Nil By Mouth went on to win the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film, a BAFTA Award (shared with Douglas Urbanski) and also the British Academy Award for Best Screenplay, the Channel 4 Director's Award, and the Empire Award, and was declared by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts as one of the one hundred best films of all time. Recently Nil By Mouth was listed by Time Out as number two of the top 50 best British films ever.

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 was also credited as a producer. Oldman has finished his latest screenplay, Chang & Eng, based on the novel by Darin Strauss, which SE8 Group will produce. In September 2006 Nokia, Nseries Studio[12] released the Oldman directed short Donut with music by Tor Hyams. The film was shot with an N93 in order to promote the phone.

Controversy

In 1991, Oldman was arrested for drunk driving along with friend and fellow actor Keifer Sutherland[13]. After a string of alcohol-fuelled debacles he checked himself into Marworth treatment facility http://www.marworth.org/ in Waverly Pennsylvania for alcoholism treatment in 1993[14]. In subsequent interviews Oldman acknowledged his problems with alcohol and called himself a "recovering" alcoholic on a 2001 interview with Charlie Rose[15]. In 2001 former wife Donya Fiorentino claimed that Oldman also had a drug habit and subjected her to domestic abuse, a claim which Oldman outright denies[16]. As of 2007, Oldman lives a teetotal lifestyle and attributes his success in beating his addiction to Alcoholics Anonymous, and has since publically praised the organisation[17].

Personal life

Despite numerous lead and supporting roles in major Hollywood productions, Oldman is intensely private with his personal life and is known for his apathetic stance towards celebrity and the ideals of Hollywood[18], once famously stating that "being famous, that's a whole other career. And I haven't got any energy for it."

Oldman has been married three times.

He has three sons: Alfie (b. 1988) from his marriage to Manville, Gulliver Flynn (b. Aug 20, 1997) and Charlie John (b. Feb 1999) from his marriage to Fiorentino.[19]. His sister, Laila Morse, is also an actress, best known as Mo Harris on the BBC's long running series Eastenders.

Filmography

References

Wikiquote has quotations related to Gary Oldman.
  1. ^ http://www.movievillains.com/archives/gary_oldman
  2. ^ --->The highest grossing film featuring Oldman in the leading role, as a villain, would be Dracula, as shown here: http://www.hollywood.com/feature/Hollywoodcoms_Top_25_Highest_Grossing_Domestic_Horror_Films_of_All_Time/3466506
  3. ^ http://www.the-numbers.com/people/GOLDM.php
  4. ^ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000198/bio
  5. ^ http://blog.washingtonpost.com/celebritology/2007/06/moring_mix_pariss_interview_no.html
  6. ^ http://www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/film/biographies/gary_oldman_biog.html
  7. ^ http://www.filmreference.com/film/93/Gary-Oldman.html
  8. ^ http://zakka.dk/euroscreenwriters/interviews/gary_oldman_525.htm
  9. ^ http://www.csh.rit.edu/~halle/oldman/biography.html
  10. ^ http://scifipedia.scifi.com/index.php/Gary_Oldman
  11. ^ http://www.charlierose.com/search?q=gary+oldman&searchTopic=-1&searchFromMonth=MM&searchFromDay=DD&searchFromYear=YY&searchToMonth=MM&searchToDay=DD&searchToYear=YY&searchFilter=gary+oldman&searchType=guest
  12. ^ http://www.nseries.com/nseries/v2/index_studio.html
  13. ^ http://www.nndb.com/people/550/000022484/
  14. ^ http://www.qa.hollywood.com/celebrity/Gary_Oldman/195567#fullBio
  15. ^ http://www.charlierose.com/search?q=gary+oldman&searchTopic=-1&searchFromMonth=MM&searchFromDay=DD&searchFromYear=YY&searchToMonth=MM&searchToDay=DD&searchToYear=YY&searchFilter=gary+oldman&searchType=guest
  16. ^ http://www.cinema.com/news/item/5166/gary-oldman-beats-up-wife.phtml
  17. ^ http://www.bollywoodsargam.com/bollywood_news.php?newsstory=295421776--0-latest-Gary_Oldman_Sells_What_He_Cant_Have_bollywood_news.html
  18. ^ http://blog.washingtonpost.com/celebritology/2007/06/moring_mix_pariss_interview_no.html
  19. ^ http://www.nndb.com/people/550/000022484

External links

Template:S-awards
Preceded by Saturn Award for Best Actor
1992
for Dracula 		Succeeded by
Preceded by BAFTA Award for Best British Film
1997
for Nil By Mouth 		Succeeded by
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