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Gary Oldman
| Biography |
Born: 21 March 1958
Where: London, England
Awards: Won 2 BAFTAs
Height: 5'10"
Filmography: Complete List
When the producers of The Prisoner Of Azkaban, the third in the massively popular Harry Potter series, were casting for their main villain, they had a major problem. The man who would be Sirius Black needed the requisite pedigree to stand alongside the weighty likes of Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman. He needed sufficient charisma to carry off the movie's final revelation. And, of course, as the titular prisoner, possible killer of Harry's parents, possibly now after Harry himself, he needed to project a frightening phantom menace from the shadows. Let's consider this for a moment. British . . . stage actor . . . impressive CV . . . charismatic . . . terrifying. It simply had to be Gary Oldman.
Having "arrived" in the mid-Eighties as part of a Brit Pack including Tim Roth and Daniel Day-Lewis, it was Oldman who led the way, mastering American accents and starring in American films. Like Streep and De Niro, he was known as an actors' actor. He didn't limit himself to "serious" roles, yet no matter how fantastic the movie's premise, he would always bring something serious, something real, something intelligent to the party. He was always watchable. And what performances he delivered - as Sid Vicious, Joe Orton, Beethoven, Dracula, Lee Harvey Oswald, the vicious Alcatraz warden in Murder In The First, the lunatic pimp in True Romance, the endlessly corrupt copper in Leon. Once seen, never forgotten. This is always the way with Gary Oldman.
He was born Leonard Gary Oldman on the 21st of March, 1958, his family living in Hatcham Park Road, close to New Cross Gate station in one of south London's rougher areas. His mother was an Irishwoman named Kathleen, his father was Len, a former sailor who'd toiled in the engine-room (and was later a welder and pipe-fitter), the couple having met in Cardiff during World War 2. |
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