 |
LONDON -- FOR SADISTIC COPS, tormented geniuses and shakespeare-quoting villains with attitude, no one beats Gary Oldman. This summer alone, the 39-year-old British actor is playing the fiendish Zorg in "The Fifth Element," a madman who hijacks the presidential plane in "Air Force One" and the sardonically evil Dr. Smith in the movie adaptation of the campy '60s sci-fi TV series "Lost in Space," currently being filmed at Shepperton Studios near London. The canny Oldman has let himself be type-cast for the money. The wages of villainy helped finance his directorial debut, "Nil by Mouth," a stark autobiographical indictment of family violence in working-class south London that was a controversial hit at this year's Cannes Film Festival. The film opens this fall in the U.S. Divorced from Uma Thurman and separated from former girlfriend Isabella Rossellini, Oldman still smarts from his lurid press as a womanizer and Hollywood hell-raiser. A recovered alcoholic who once put away two bottles of vodka a day, Oldman met his current wife, American model Donya Fiorentino, in a rehabilitation center. The couple now splits time between a house in the Hollywood hills and a flat in London. Oldman started his career at London's experimental Royal Court Theatre and first grabbed cinematic attention as punk rocker Sid Vicious. Since then, the mercurial actor has put his stamp on a wildly mixed bag of roles, from gay playwright Joe Orton to Beethoven, Dracula, Lee Harvey Oswald, painter Julian Schnabel and the Rev. Dimmesdale, who sins with Demi Moore in "The Scarlet Letter." Interviewed during a break in shooting "Lost in Space," Oldman, sporting a buzz-cut and sparse goatee that made him look like a brown-haired Van Gogh, was a study in restraint and dry wit. But when certain buttons were pushed -- "fucking Merchant-Ivory movies," the rage in families, press gossip about "crazy Oldman," method acting hocus-pocus -- his eyes burned platinum. Although he says that the fire has gone out of his passion to act, it appears that the volcano is only smoldering. Why were you attracted to the role of Dr. Smith? I thought it would be nice to do something my kid Alfie could watch. How old is your boy? Eight and a half. I've played many weird, sick and twisted characters so it's nice to play a weird, sick and twisted character my kid can see.
|
