Actor Gary Oldman recently claimed that his acting as Sirius Black in the Harry Potter franchise was “mediocre” and that it would have improved if he had read the books.
Gary Oldman as Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), Warner Bros. Pictures
In an interview with Josh Horowitz, Horowitz brought up the fact that actor Alan Rickman was the only actor who knew how the series would end while they were filming the earlier book adaptations.
Not only did he bring up that Rickman knew how the books ended, but he also asked, “Is that? [The role of Sirius Black] that will reverberate for generations. That one must come up every day, every other day, does it [come up] more than other roles that come into your life?”
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Oldman responded, “Yeah, it’s the most frequently. If they ask me to sign a picture then that’s the one that comes up the most, you know.”
He then bluntly shared, “I think my work is mediocre in it. No, I do.”
When asked why he elaborated, “I don’t know. Maybe, maybe if I had read the books like Alan. If I’d got ahead of the curve I would have played…If I had known what’s coming, I honestly think I would have played it differently.”
Gary Oldman as Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), Warner Bros. Pictures
Oldman’s comments echo what many fans have said about film adaptations of popular novels or even comic books. The movies are always better the closer they hew to the source material. This was something that Ian McKellen also noted during an interview back in 2003 while promoting the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
First, McKellen noted that director Peter Jackson was always reading The Lord of the Rings every morning on set. He explained, “The wise man was Jackson. I mean, every morning you would arrive on set, no matter how early you got there, you got down in costume, and Peter would be sitting down in his chair — there’s video monitors that he watched the proceedings on — reading a book. It was always the same book, Lord of the Rings, always.”
He then noted he emulated Jackson by also reading his copy to help him better prepare for his role as Gandalf, “But I could match him because I had a pocket in Gandalf the Gray’s costume that I kept my The Lord of the Rings in. So the night before, I’d look up the scene we were going to do and see if there was anything in the Tolkien that I thought had been missed, or overlooked, or could enhance what we’d got.
He continued, “And if you could point to a particular line and say, ‘Could we not have this back in the script? And it was written by Tolkien, Peter almost always said, of course.”
Ian McKellen as Gandalf confronts King Theoden in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2022), New Line Cinema
The idea of staying true to the source material is not hard to understand, but current day directors and producers seem to struggle mightily to understand it. It probably has a lot to do with their own pride and ego believing they can create something better than the source material rather than having the humility and gratitude to work on such revered and popular properties.
One need only look at recent offerings in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that have no real connection to any comic book storylines or if they do, it’s usually a massive change from the source material. Audiences have rejected these offerings en masse and Marvel Studios has racked up hundreds of millions in losses at the box office.
(L-R): Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan, Brie Larson as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers, and Teyonah Parris as Captain Monica Rambeau in Marvel Studios’ THE MARVELS. Photo by Laura Radford. © 2023 MARVEL.
Another example is the upcoming The Lord of the Rings animated film, War of the Rohirrim. A report from Slashfilm indicated the film would focus on Helm Hammerhand’s unnamed daughter and that the character “is the protagonist of The War of the Rohirrim.” The character will be called Hèra in the film.
Producer Philippa Boyens explained the decision, “Everyone else dies! And before you start complaining, this is already in the text, and also the story takes place centuries before the movies.”
The character was also described by the film’s director “as tomboy-ish, a young woman who is wild and vulnerable, with a character arc that sees her grow in a time of war — because you can’t really have a Middle-earth story without war.”
Ian McKellen as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), New Line Cinema
It’s not hard to stay true to the source material and as Gary Oldman points out it will improve the film not just from a story perspective, but also in the actors’ performances.
Unfortunately, Hollywood must be taught this lesson over and over again because as we’ve seen they simply do not want to learn it.
Mark Williams as Arthur Weasley and Gary Oldman as Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), Warner Bros. Pictures
What do you make of Oldman’s comments?
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