“Harry Potter” actor Gary Oldman revealed in a recent interview that he was not terribly impressed with his own performance in the popular film series, calling his acting “mediocre” and suggesting that he might have been better prepared for the role if he “had read the books” like some of his colleagues.
Oldman — who portrayed Harry’s godfather Sirius Black through several of the films — spoke with host Josh Horowitz on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, where he downplayed his own performance, but had nothing but the highest praise for the late actor Alan Rickman, who played the role of Severus Snape.
“I think my work is mediocre in it,” Oldman said of the series as a whole, but said that he might feel differently — or he might have approached his character differently — if he had taken the same steps to prepare that Rickman had going into the project.
“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,” Oldman said, also noting that Rickman had spent time with series creator JK Rowling discussing Snape’s future, possibly giving him a better grasp of his character’s individual story arc.
Oldman did offer one caveat, adding that he was often critical of his own work — and probably would have judged himself just as harshly even if he had felt better prepared for the role.
“I’ll tell you what it is, it’s like anything. I think 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,” he explained.
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Oldman also admitted, during a recent appearance on “The Drew Barrymore Show,” that the role in the “Harry Potter” films had been a godsend — coming just after a divorce that left him a single father.
“At 42 years old, I woke up, you know, sort of divorced and I had custody of these boys,” he told Barrymore, explaining that, in a way, “Harry Potter” and “The Dark Knight” had “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.”
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