The “Harry Potter” film franchise might have saved Gary Oldman’s career, but he’s not giving himself much praise for his performance as Sirius Black. Oldman debuted as the fan favorite character in 2004’s “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” During a recent interview on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, the Oscar winner called his acting in the “Harry Potter” movies “mediocre.” Most fans across the world would probably disagree.
“I think my work is mediocre in it,” Oldman said to the shock of podcast host Josh Horowitz. “No, I do. Maybe if I had read the books like Alan [Rickman], if I had got ahead of the curve, if I had known what’s coming, I honestly think I would have played it differently.”
Not that Oldman often has praise for himself when he watches one of his performances. As he added: “It’s like anything, if I sat and watched myself in something and said, ‘My god, I’m amazing,’ that would be a very sad day, because you want to make the next thing better.”
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During a recent appearance on “The Drew Barrymore Show,” Oldman expressed gratitude for the “Harry Potter” and “Batman” film franchises for saving him, both in his career and his personal life. Acting jobs were drying up for Oldman before he got cast as Sirius Black and James “Jim” Gordon — two roles that made him a fan favorite among genre fans and gave his career the star power it never had before.
“At 42 years old, I woke up divorced and I had custody of [my] boys,” Oldman said. “That, in itself, was… that was hard because there was a shift in the industry where a lot of productions were being [filmed in] Hungary, Budapest, Prague, Australia, you know, all of these places. So, I turned down a lot of work.”
“Thank God for ‘Harry Potter,’” he continued. “Thank God for ‘Harry Potter.’ I tell you, the two — ‘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.”
Watch Oldman’s full appearance on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast in the video below.
