I'VE JUST HAD DIABOLICAL GOOD LUCK'

GARY OLDMAN GETS CANDID ABOUT SOBRIETY, SECOND CHANCES AND WHY JACKSON LAMB MIGHT BE THE ROLE OF HIS LIFE

- by Scott Roxborough

Gary Oldman is in a good place.

For an actor whose early career was defined by volatility — on- and offscreen — that’s no small feat. Born in 1958 in working-class New Cross, South London, Oldman came up through British theatre before breaking out in the 1980s with fearless portrayals of damaged men: punk icon Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy (1986) and murdered playwright Joe Orton in Prick Up Your Ears (1987).

By the mid-’90s, his talent for feral, unhinged roles — in Léon: The Professional, The Fifth Element, True Romance — had made him Hollywood’s go-to psycho. On Air Force One, Harrison Ford dubbed him “Scary Gary.”

But typecasting persisted. “I put myself out of work,” Oldman says of his decision to break free from his “rent-a-villain” persona.

The gamble worked. A late-career reinvention brought gravitas and restraint: Sirius Black in Harry Potter, police commissioner Jim Gordon in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. These quieter turns reaffirmed his screen presence — without the pyrotechnics. (Getting off the booze helped. Oldman, now 28 years sober, says he used to “sweat vodka.”)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) earned him his first Oscar nomination, for a role so internalised it left him rattled. “It was a really naked role,” says producing partner Douglas Urbanski. “It almost gave him a nervous breakdown.”

“There was no hiding,” says Oldman. “I felt very exposed.”

More prestige roles followed. His towering performance as Churchill in Darkest Hour (2017) brought Oldman his long-overdue Oscar. Mank (2020), a more vulnerable portrayal of the witty, self-destructive Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, brought him his third nomination.

But his turn in