Gary Oldman is a screen icon, but in a new interview, the legendary actor has admitted to being dissatisfied with one of his most famous roles: Harry Potter's Sirius Black.
The Dark Knight star made his debut as the fan-favourite J.K. Rowling creation in 2004's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, delivering a madcap performance which later saw him reprise the role in the following two movies. Eventually, Oldman bid farewell to the character when he tragically died in battle during the events of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
It appears the actor wasn't particularly unhappy to bid farewell to the role as he recently told Josh Horowitz, "I think my work is mediocre in it. No, I do. Maybe if I had read the books like Alan, if I had got ahead of the curve, if I had known what's coming, I honestly think I would have played it differently."
"I'll tell you what it is," he said of why he often finds fault with his work. "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."
It's hard to find anyone unhappy with Oldman's approach to Sirius, though there were some differences from the books, particularly in Prisoner of Azkaban. Filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón took a unique approach to the material, of course, so the actor's performance fit in well with his darker approach to the material.
You can check out his comments about Harry Potter in full below.
Recently, Oldman talked candidly about how important the Harry Potter and Batman franchises were for him. He was already a household name when he played Sirius Black and Commissioner Jim Gordon, of course, but the star power those roles gave him came at a crucial time in the actor's life.
"At 42 years old, I woke up divorced and I had custody of [my] boys," Oldman explained. "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 ['Batman']. 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."
"When we did the first Batman, London doubled for Gotham. I did 27 round trips of flying back from LA. I’d fly in for a day. I’d do a shoot a day. To Chris Nolan’s credit, he stayed on schedule. I would go home for three days. Come back for two. Go home for a weekend. Come back for a day," Oldman recalled. "Otherwise, I just felt my kids are being brought up by a nanny."
Here's our interview with Oldman for Slow Horses season 2: