There were times when Gary Oldman was a heavy drinker. Now he just plays them.
The iconic British actor, 67, jokes that he’s in his ‘alcoholic period’, playing characters like his booze-addled screenwriter in Netflix’s Mank and the slovenly, hard-drinking spy Jackson Lamb in Apple TV Plus show Slow Horses.
This week he’s back in cinemas in Parthenope as John Cheever, the American author who struggled with the bottle for years until he became sober aged 65.
In the 90s, Oldman was just the same, drinking two bottles of vodka a day at his peak. Did alcohol ever help him? ‘No,’ he says, firmly, when we meet. ‘You think that it gives you an edge.’
He recalls a day on 1995 film The Scarlet Letter when he drank at lunchtime and then performed a scene opposite co-star and now newly-minted Oscar winner, Demi Moore.
‘That particular day…the devil got into me,’ he sighs, mortified. ‘Like the Baptists [say]…the devil came down!’
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No doubt, Oldman – who has played such memorable roles as Lee Harvey Oswald, Dracula and Joe Orton – was on a slide towards oblivion until he gave up alcohol in 1997.
‘Without that, I wouldn’t be sitting here today, really. I’d be dead. I know that for a fact. Things have come my way since then.’
Since, he’s gained three Oscar nominations – and won Best Actor for his role as British PM Winston Churchill (another boozer), as well as being a regular actor for mega-director Christopher Nolan, including smash hit Oppenheimer.
Still, you have to wonder when he plays an alcoholic – like Cheever in Parthenope – is it hard to resist the temptation?
‘I don’t even see it,’ he says. ‘It’s like another life, really. It’s like a whole different person. Like I lived a whole different other life. I can go out and buy it. I can open a bottle of wine and pour you some. I have no desire to even take a sip. I had no interest at all.
‘And sometimes people will say, “Oh, you don’t mind if I ever drink?” Have two! Have one for me! I don’t care!’
Now on his fifth marriage, to art curator Gisele Schmidt, Oldman is looking fresh and upbeat. And he certainly doesn’t seem bothered if his better half takes a drink.
‘My wife occasionally likes a glass of wine. And it don’t worry me. It’s a miracle. It’s fantastic. I mean, just because I get sober, they’re not going to take booze out of the liquor store. The world is what it is. The problem’s with me, not with the vodka company!’
He’s delighted to be in Parthenope, the new film from Italian director Paolo Sorrentino – a great hero of Oldman’s – who has made films like Youth and the Oscar-winning The Great Beauty.
The feeling is clearly mutual. ‘Gary Oldman is an actor I really adore – I love him very much,’ the enthusiastic Sorrentino tells me. ‘He’s a very kind, gentle person and he can play anything. He plays anything to perfection.’
Although his role in Parthenope is small, it’s perfectly formed, you might say. His character, Cheever, meets a young Italian woman, Parthenope, played by Celeste Dalla Porta, who has academic intentions.
Oldman says it was fascinating playing opposite the untested Dalla Porta, even if it made him a little sad.
‘Fifty years of doing it, I’m a veteran with experience. And Celeste is a young actress whose life will change after this film. And there’s an innocence and purity that will be lost forever.’
Unlike his co-star, Oldman has been through the mill. Comb through his CV and you’ll find little-seen films like Sin, Dead Fish and The Unborn.
‘I’ve had darker periods where there’s the highs and then there’s the lows, and you got to put the kids through school, and you got to pay the mortgage and do all of that. And you do sometimes. I’ve done things that ordinarily wouldn’t be on the radar. Under different circumstances, I may have said, ‘Pass, no.’ That’s soul destroying.’
You won’t find him critiquing others for milking a cash-cow, though.
‘We’ve all done it. And if I see a really good actor sometimes appear in something that’s a little bit dubious, I never judge. People would be quick to say, “Oh my God, what’s he doing in that? What’s she doing in that?” Now, I know. And I go, “Oh, he just had that divorce, didn’t he?”’
Recently, Oldman has found a steady paycheque on TV show Slow Horses, a gig that he – and fans – absolutely love.
‘Now a lot of people know that I’m not available,’ he says. ‘Basically I’m kind of off the market because of the show. But I like that. I like that. I like the show very much.’
Winning him an Emmy nomination, it shows no signs of slowing down, with season five slated for the summer and Oldman wrapping on season six earlier this year.
‘He’s still living so he’s still writing these books,’ he says, talking about author Mick Herron. ‘So I think I signed up for eight [seasons].’
The only thing that seems to be frustrating him these days is getting another directorial project off the ground. The only ever movie he’s directed was 1997’s scorching Nil By Mouth – another story of addiction, inspired by his own upbringing in South London.
Since then, for a decade, he’s tried to get a movie made about Edward Muybridge, the pioneering 19th century photographer. But the studios simply don’t want to fund a movie Oldman estimates will cost $30million (£22.3m).
‘You go to Focus and they don’t want to do it, and they say that it doesn’t fit our model. But then, of course, someone else a year later is the head of Focus, and then you try again. And you go to Netflix, and then they’re out, and then [there are] the new guys at Netflix.
‘The producer of Parthenope, Lorenzo [Mieli], read it and adored it, and he said, “I long to see this movie.” But people want to either give you a million dollars or $200mi (£149m). There doesn’t seem to be any middle.’
Maybe we should all have a whip-round down the pub.
Parthenope is in cinemas on May 2.
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