Gary Oldman is an English actor who has worked in theatre, film and television.
His full name is Gary Leonard Oldman.
Oldman was born on March 21, 1958 in London, England.
His father, Leonard Bertram Oldman, was a sailor who also worked as a welder while his mother, Kathleen (née Cheriton), was a homemaker.
Oldman was raised in a working-class family in London, the youngest of three children.
He won a scholarship to Britain’s Rose Bruford Drama College, in Sidcup, Kent, where he received a B.A. in theatre arts in 1979.
He subsequently studied with the Greenwich Young People’s Theatre and went on to appear in a number of plays throughout the early ’80s.
He made his film debut in Remembrance (1982).
In 1983 he landed a starring role as a skinhead in Mike Leigh’s film Meantime, and moved on to Chesterfield to assume the lead role in Entertaining Mr Sloane.
In 1986 Oldman turned in a star-making performance as drug-ravaged Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious in the film Sid and Nancy.
He then received a Best Actor nomination from BAFTA for his portrayal of ’60s playwright Joe Orton in Prick Up Your Ears (1987).
In the first half of 1990s, Oldman brought to life a series of famous real-world and fictional villains including Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK (1991), the title character in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), Drexl Spivey in True Romance (1993), Stansfield in Léon:w The Professional (1994)
He won further praise for his restrained portrayal of Ludwig van Beethoven in Immortal Beloved (1994).
Oldman appeared as a slickly coiffed agent of evil in the Luc Besson-directed sci-fi extravaganza The Fifth Element (1997).
Aside from acting, Oldman tried his hand at writing and directing for Nil by Mouth (1997). The movie opened the Cannes Film Festival in 1997, and won Kathy Burke a Best Actress prize at the festival.
He portrayed another historical figure, Pontius Pilate, in Jesus (1999).
Oldman appeared opposite Jeff Bridges as zealous Republican congressman Sheldon Runyon in The Contender (2000), in which he was also credited as a producer.
In the Ridley Scott-helmed Silence of the Lambs sequel Hannibal (2001), he disappeared under layers of prostheses to play Hannibal Lecter’s former patient and nemesis, whom the cannibal induced into cutting off his own face after drugging him.
Oldman played the coveted role of Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), giving him a key part in one of the highest-grossing franchises ever. He reprised that role in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007).
Oldman played a police lieutenant allied to the titular caped crusader in director Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy (2005, 2008, 2012).
Oldman received strong reviews and earned his first Academy Award nomination and a BAFTA Award nomination for his portrayal of British spy George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), an adaptation of the John le Carré novel, directed by Tomas Alfredson.
n 2012, Oldman played Floyd Banner, a big-hitting mobster, in John Hillcoat’s Lawless, alongside Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, Guy Pearce and Jessica Chastain.
In 2013, Oldman portrayed Nicholas Wyatt, a ruthless CEO, in Robert Luketic’s Paranoia, along with Harrison Ford and Liam Hemsworth.
In 2014, he played one of the lead humans in the science fiction action film Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014). Also in 2014, Oldman starred alongside Joel Kinnaman, Abbie Cornish, Michael Keaton, and Samuel L. Jackson in the remake of RoboCop (2014), as Norton, the scientist who creates RoboCop.
In 2015, Oldman played the head of police that investigates Tom Hardy’s character in Child 44, alongside Noomi Rapace and Joel Kinnaman, and had a supporting role in the post-apocalyptic American thriller Man Down, directed by Dito Montiel, and starring alongside Shia LaBeouf and Kate Mara.
In 2016, Oldman played a CIA chief in Criminal, directed by Ariel Vromen, and starring Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones, Ryan Reynolds, Alice Eve, and Gal Gadot.
In 2017 he appeared in the action-comedy The Hitman’s Bodyguard and then starred under heavy prosthetics as Winston Churchill in the drama Darkest Hour, set during the early years of World War II when the prime minister must rally Britain to carry on against encroaching German troops rather than pursue a peace treaty. For his performance in the latter film, Oldman won his first Academy Award.
Gary Oldman has an estimated net worth of $50 million.
Oldman has been married five times and has three sons: Alfie Oldman (born 1988) from his first marriage to Lesley Manville. Gulliver Flynn Oldman (born 1997) and Charlie John Oldman (born 1999) with Donya Fiorentino.
He has English, with a smaller amount of Irish, ancestry.
Oldman received an Emmy Award nomination for two guest appearances in Friends in May 2001, appearing in the two-part episode “The One With Chandler and Monica’s Wedding” as Richard Crosby, a pedantic actor who insists that “real” actors spit on one another when they enunciate, leading to tension, then friendship, with Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc).
He starred in David Bowie’s music video David Bowie: The Next Day (2013) alongside Marion Cotillard, his co-star in The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
For Darkest Hour (2017), he became one of 14 actors to win the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Critics’ Choice Award, Golden Globe Award and SAG Award for the same performance.
Oldman’s problems with alcohol were well-known during the early 1990s: he checked himself into rehab for alcoholism treatment in 1995.
He is celebrity spokesperson for Nokia.