{"id":710829,"date":"2026-07-25T17:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T17:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/710829\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T17:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T17:34:12","slug":"the-2005-role-gary-oldman-feels-closest-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/710829\/","title":{"rendered":"The 2005 role Gary Oldman feels closest to"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Gary<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ YouTube Still<\/p>\n

Sat 25 July 2026 12:09, UK <\/p>\n

Following his time at drama school, Gary Oldman<\/a> starred in various theatre productions, determined to become a professional. He\u2019d been inspired by Malcolm McDowell to become an actor, enthralled by his on-screen presence. By 1982, Oldman had landed a part in his first film, Remembrance. <\/p>\n

The following year, he appeared in Mike Leigh\u2019s Meantime<\/a>, playing an unemployed skinhead alongside another future star, Tim Roth. This early performance was hard to ignore \u2013 he was irritating and rude, a racist who reflected the Thatcher era\u2019s lack of acceptance of other identities and cultures. <\/p>\n

Proving himself capable of playing complex, often controversial roles, Oldman went on to portray another multi-layered character, Sid Vicious, in Alex Cox\u2019s Sid and Nancy. His performance was widely praised, with Oldman hailed as one of his generation\u2019s greatest new talents.<\/p>\n

From there, he was soon landing more significant opportunities, and by the early 1990s, he was establishing himself in blockbusters like JFK (playing Lee Harvey Oswald), Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula, True Romance, and Leon: The Professional. During this time, he earned a reputation for playing evil characters, mastering these characters a little too well. <\/p>\n

Who can forget Oldman\u2019s Drexl Spivey in True Romance? With a mysterious scar on his face, dreadlocks, gold teeth and a milky, dead eye, the character has an unnerving presence, becoming one of the most memorable characters in the film. Despite being terrifying and ruthless, Drexl is also laced with humour. This is a white man who thinks he\u2019s black, trying to act tough without seeing the ridiculousness of his attempt to emulate a style that he clearly can\u2019t pull off.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Batman<\/a>Credit: Far Out \/ Warner Bros. Pictures<\/p>\n

In Leon: The Professional<\/a>, he\u2019s slightly more menacing as Norman Stansfield, a DEA agent who surpasses the word \u2018corrupt\u2019 \u2013 he\u2019s pure evil. After visiting Mathilda\u2019s family apartment to confront her father, who is stashing cocaine for him, he murders the whole family, including her four-year-old brother. When Mathilda returns home and discovers the crime scene, she seeks revenge, starting off a chain of events that leads to Stansfield\u2019s downfall. Oldman is incredible as the soulless villain, always making his scenes terrifying and claustrophobic \u2013 this is someone you really don\u2019t want to get involved with. <\/p>\n

Oldman\u2019s reputation as a scary, villainous actor was truly cemented after these roles. He\u2019d played vampires and criminals, hardly presenting himself as a friendly, charming guy. Yet, in reality, Oldman doesn\u2019t relate to any of these parts, finding himself reflected in the kinder characters he\u2019s occasionally played. In an interview with ONTD, he revealed, \u201cI don\u2019t know how it happened. I really don\u2019t. I was this\u2026 psycho guy. I just got into these parts. Then it\u2026 it\u2026 contaminates people. And they think that you\u2019re Crazy-Scary-Gary.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a common paradox for actors who disappear so completely into their performances. The more convincing they become on screen, the easier it is for audiences to assume the intensity must stem from their real personality. Oldman\u2019s greatest gift has always been his ability to inhabit characters so fully that the distinction between actor and role temporarily disappears, making his villains feel unsettlingly authentic rather than theatrically exaggerated.<\/p>\n

That success, however, also encouraged Hollywood to keep returning to the same well. Throughout the 1990s, filmmakers repeatedly cast Oldman as the unpredictable antagonist because he had proven few actors could match his combination of volatility, intelligence and charisma. While those performances became career-defining, they also obscured the remarkable range that would later earn him acclaim in more restrained, empathetic roles.<\/p>\n

In reality, \u201cThe closest character to me is Jim Gordon,\u201d he admits. The character appears in The Dark Knight trilogy and remains a close friend to Batman throughout the series, trusting him to fight crime in Gotham City. Explaining why he likes the character, he praised Gordon for having \u201ca good sense of right and wrong,\u201d calling him a \u201cFamily man. Just a regular geezer.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Oldman, playing nice guys is just as rewarding as playing villains, and he\u2019s evidently just as capable of both. Still, it\u2019s impossible to separate Oldman from those iconic evil roles that made him so famous because they\u2019re just so unforgettably good. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ YouTube Still Sat 25 July 2026 12:09, UK Following his time at drama school,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[92249,33893,96,7210,165535,2839,235417,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-710829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-2000s","tag-33893","tag-entertainment","tag-gary-oldman","tag-leon-the-professional","tag-movies","tag-true-romance","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}