Gary Oldman lives in America now: I say trunk & elevator & cellphone these days
Here are some photos of Gary Oldman at the London Critics’ Circle Awards over the weekend. I meant to cover them yesterday, but I totally forgot. I know how much many of you ladies love a dash of Oldman in your day. I have to admit, he looked very handsome at the event. The tuxedo was lovely, his hair is working and he’s aging a lot better than most of us were expecting. He’s 55 years old by the way. For some reason, I did think he was older.
Gary was at the event to pay tribute to a friend and film critic. But Gary also has some new movies coming out: he’s got supporting parts in Robo-Cop and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, both of which come out this year. So that probably explains why he did this new, lengthy interview with The Big Issue. You can read the full piece here, and here are some highlights:
His happiest memory: “To this day I think my happiest memory is the night my sister Jackie took me on the 36 bus to the Odeon. We went to see A Hard Day’s Night. I remember clearly waiting in line, then sitting in the audience in that lovely old cinema singing along to all the Beatles songs. Jackie had the album so I knew all the lyrics. I think I was wearing short trousers and a sweater my mother knitted for me. At one point Jackie had to shush me because I was singing so loudly. I remember that moment. Great memory. A great memory. I was six. And I didn’t have a care in the world.”
He lives in LA & Santa Barbara now with his English jazz singer wife Alexandra Edenborough, and his accent has changed: “I have dropped some English words for American ones; I say trunk and elevator and cellphone these days.”
He’s good an impressions: “I was quite a good impersonator. I have a knack. I can meet a person and do an impersonation of them within minutes. Yeah, it is a skill. I could have a whole conversation with myself and the four Beatles. I like language and I’ve always enjoyed the wonderful sounds of different accents. I can pick up an accent very quickly up.”
Even though he’s been a bad boy, he insists: “[I’m] a sweet boy whose conscience always got the better of him. A nice boy, a bit too sensitive for my own good.”
When people praise him: “What blows my mind most is when you meet people you respect and they revere you. You’re a fan of theirs… and it turns out they’re a fan of you. I still meet these people thinking, oh come on, they won’t have a f–king clue who you are. It’s wonderful when they know who I am. I remember with Dustin Hoffman, he actually just called up one day. He’d asked for my number. I answered the phone and there he was [he drops into a perfect Dustin Hoffman nasally snuffle], ‘Look, Gery, it’s uh, it’s Dustin’. And I said, oh… alright? And he’d seen something I was in and wanted to tell me.”
Gary also says he’s tried to pay it forward with compliments, and he’s started calling up his fellow actors to praise them when he’s seen a particularly good performance. He said that the last person he’s called was Matthew McConaughey, and Gary thought MM was “fabulous” in Dallas Buyers Club.
I actually didn’t know Gary had transplanted to California somewhat permanently. I know a lot of English actors get crap for immigrating to America for work (or for the American lifestyle), but I think it’s nice. And it explains some questions I’ve had about Gary making so many appearances in so many American films lately. He’s in LA/Santa Barbara – he probably takes meetings all the time for projects. It reminds me a bit of Anthony Hopkins too – after Hopkins became so famous in American films like Silence of the Lambs, he gave up his British citizenship and became an American.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
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