As recently covered in a conversation about “Batman Begins,” Academy Award winner Gary Oldman (“The Darkest Hour”) was recently on the Happy Sad Confused at 92 Street Y In New York. In the selection we covered, Oldman revealed that he was up for a villain role in Christopher Nolan’s ‘Batman’ movie but was sick of playing villains, and through his agent, they suggested Commissioner Jim Gordon instead, one of Batman’s most trusted allies.
But Oldman obviously made a name for himself playing villains early on in his career, and he’s on record for saying one of his favorite roles was that of Drexl Spivey, the drug-dealing pimp in Tony Scott’s “True Romance.” The movie was famously written by Quentin Tarantino, and he got to speak some of the filmmaker’s dialogue, but the actor still laments not being directed by Tarantino and starring in one of his movies.
Happy Sad Confused brought up this piece of trivia—that Oldman had spoken Tarantino dialogue but had never actually been in one of his films — and asked him if it bothered him. The answer seemed to be a resounding yes.
You’ve never been in one of his films, HSC host Josh Horowitz said, which launched Oldman into a whole story. “Never,” he lamented. “No, he never asked me to be in a film.”
Oldman was apparently on a wish-list cast list for “Pulp Fiction” that recently resurfaced, but the actor apparently never knew he was on it, sounding slightly perturbed about the missed opportunity (for those wondering, Tarantino had Oldman as a possibility for several characters, including John Travolta’s Vincent lead, Tim Roth’s Pumpkin, and Lance, which Eric Stoltz eventually played). “No,” he said if he knew that Tarantino had him on the wish list, and HSC noted that at least the filmmaker had him in mind, which didn’t seem to bring Oldman any sense of comfort. “Well, he’s only making one more film. He’s only making one last film, he says, and I ain’t it in!” Oldman said with a cheeky pluck of attitude, suggesting again that he’s annoyed he missed the opportunity to work with Tarantino.
Regardless, Spivey remains one of Oldman’s favorite roles, “Heavens, [yes!]” he answered when asked about the role.
“I didn’t even read the script,” Oldman revealed and then said he basically took the role on the spot when Scott explained it to him. “Tony Scott met me—god bless his soul— and he was there in his pink shorts, his big cigar, and his baseball cap, and he said, ‘Look, I’m no good at telling the story and the plot and the thing of the film.’ He said, “Look, the character, he’s white, but because of the culture and everything else, he thinks he’s Black. And he’s a pimp.’ And I said, ‘I’ll do it.’ It sounded interesting.”
Oldman said he found inspiration for the Drexl role while shooting “Romeo’s Bleeding” on location in New York. He heard a young Black kid on the street talking and immediately invited him into his film trailer and recorded him speaking to get a feel for his accent and vibe.
“That’s a good Drexl voice!” Oldman recalled his thought in that moment. Oldman even says the kid helped him change some of the dialogue. “I approached him and invited him into the trailer and said, ‘Would you read a bit of text for me and record your voice?’ He looked at the text and said, ‘I would never say that; that wouldn’t fly, I would say this,’ and so I changed some of the words… and presented that to Tony.”
Oldman said the character was what he thought was a Marky Mark-type guy “who embraced the culture,” he explained. “But I had a ball on it, and I was only on it for three days.”
We don’t know who is yet in “The Movie Critic,” Tarantino’s supposed final film, but clearly, Oldman hasn’t gotten a call and is bummed about it. But hey, Quentin, if you’re ever reading this, clearly, it’s probably not too late to give him a small part just to make this story end well.
Is there any other actor out there you would have loved to see work with Tarantino? Personally, for me, I would have loved to see a starring role for Denzel Washington, who did speak some of Tarantino’s dialogue in the rewritten script for “Crimson Tide” (Washington basically admitted to rumors that he perceived some of the dialogue as racist and had a falling out with Tarantino over it, but says he quashed the feud in a 2012 GQ interview). And one last lead role for Harvey Keitel (who starred in “Reservoir Dogs”) would have been great, too. Watch the interview below and definitely watch the Oldman interview from the set of “True Romance,” a true blast from the past.