The Happy Sad Confused podcast has been on quite a roll lately with its live conversations at the 92 Street Y In New York. The latest this week is HSC in conversation with Academy Award winner Gary Oldman (“The Darkest Hour”), who made some headlines this past week for saying he was “mediocre” in the “Harry Potter” movies, the actor being something of a self-deprecating self-critic who is hard on himself.
But deeper in the conversation, there are arguably more interesting conversations about Oldman’s career, which goes as far back as 1982 with “Remembrance,” and then really breaking out and never looking back with his 1986 turn as Sid Vicious in “Sid And Nancy.” The conversation eventually turned to Christopher Nolan and the ‘Dark Knight’ trilogy, Oldman having played Commissioner Jim Gordon in three of the films and recently credited the franchise with “saving” his career (“‘Batman’ and ‘Harry Potter’ — really, they saved me, because it meant that I could do the least amount of work for the most amount of money and then be home with the kids,” he said recently about how he was divorced at the time and had custody of his kids).
During the Happy Sad Confused conversation, however, Oldman admitted he was initially up for a villain role but then convinced Christopher Nolan to try on another idea. The rub is Oldman doesn’t quite remember what character he was up for, but he believes it was Scarecrow, the role that went to Cillian Murphy instead. HSC host Josh Horowitz asked Oldman if he was initially up for Liam Neeson’s Ra’s al Ghul villain character in “Batman Begins,” but Oldman thought it was the film’s second antagonist.
“I got a feeling it was Scarecrow,” he said. “That was about the time when I was sort of thinking I’ve had enough of [playing villains]. I think it was my manager who suggested to Chris, ‘What about Jim Gordon?’ And, to his credit, Chris went, ‘Hm, that’s interesting.’ We met, and that’s how it sort of came about. But I think it might be Scarecrow. “
Oldman is right in thinking by that point, he had made a mark playing iconic villains in “True Romance,” “Leon: The Professional,” “The Fifth Element,” “Air Force One,” “Hannibal” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” to name just a few.
The casting certainly worked for Cillian Murphy, who would eventually go on to play the lead in Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” a movie that Oldman has a small part in as well. Oldman is currently starring in Apple TV+’s “Slow Horses” spy series, and he’s teased that the fourth season may be the final one. He’s described it as pretty epic, in the can, and one that he can’t wait for audiences to see. Watch the entire conversation below.
