(FULL) Gary Oldman interview on Charlie Rose

gary oldman is here he exploded onto the movie scene in the 1980s with his portrayals of punk rocker Sid Vicious and Sid and Nancy and playwright Joe Orton and prick up your ears Roger Ebert called him the best young British actor around in recent years he has appeared as serious black in the Harry Potter films and Commissioner Gordon in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy in a new movie Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy he takes on the role of one of literature's greatest spies George Smiley the film adaptation of John Locke araise 1974 espionage novel is the first since Alec Dennis's iconic portrayal of smiley in the BBC miniseries version in 1979 but perhaps what you actually did and forgot to tell us about was to burn the British passports you obtained for mrs. Pooler miss Danny Poole but kept your own to convince Connors footpads you thought it was still safe then probably you made travel bookings in the name of the Poole family for the same reason you doctored the Swiss passports for Danny and her mother and made other arrangements for them like staying in Marseilles perhaps friends and here is the trailer for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy there is a mole right at the top of British intelligence he's been there for years for 25 years we've been the only thing standing between Moscow and the third world war I retire you outside the family a place to look into this for us now I'll do my utmost I know like it is one of these man all I want from you is one codename Tinker Tailor Soldier by I need you to do something gonna have to sing you up into the lion's den if you're caught what the hell are you doing up there comment for me got something to trade something Tolman secret the mother of all secrets had information concerning a double agent ever see only what [Music] things aren't always what they seem [Music] becomes the object no sir very different you we're looking for the weaknesses in one another [Music] I am pleased to have Gary Oldman back at this table welcome thank you it's nice to be it's nice to have you back yes sir it's been a good year for you it has been an extraordinary it's been an extraordinary couple of years this project falling from the falling from the sky as it did I sitting in my kitchen and in Los Angeles while I was out of work but I think actors refer to it as resting I was resting between engagements and and the phone rang and they said would you like to play George Smiley and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and you said I while I was intrigued and I did I obviously knew the material I knew the book I had seen the original series in 79 with Alec Guinness and it gave me pause for thought they're enormous shoes to step into he was as you know um a knight of the realm yes a much beloved actor both in the theater and and the movies and his portrayal of George Smiley is considered by many to to have been the definitive performance and and he had a huge success with it and it's a holy cow the Tinker Tailor in in the UK and it's quite something to take on I think we all we all of this Peter strong Bridget O'Connor the the writers and Tomas Alfredson the director we all approached it with with with the same we have the same jitters because you're really putting yourself up for a full if you can't pull it off and there's something called the ghost of Guinness I guess yes the the I mean they are obviously there are comparisons to be made and if you're a classical actor let's say and you are asked to play Leo or Hamlet or Willie Loveman yeah launched a bar one of these sort of iconic figures of classical literature you know the inevitable comparisons are there you are going to be measured against all the great Hamlet's and all the great leaders that came before but you're your canvas for something like Hamlet is very very wide it it offers up it invites you it invites many interpretations you can have a 19-year old actor play Hamlet you can have a 35 year old actor play Hamlet you can be mad you can be sane you can be you can be angry there's there's or it lets you you can be the modern you can be historic you can be modern you can it's low Chinese or it's Jacobi and Elizabeth and however you want to do it with with Licari with smiley you're you can't futz too much and mess with the molecules it there's a there's a there's a DNA at work here and you I am I think inevitably going to arrive at the same destinations not all of them but the same the same destination that guinness arrived at what do you mean by destination well there are just there are just certain character traits that smiley has that you that you can't mess with just for the sake of of making it a modern were different so the the that bigger comparison in a sense was was was a dragon that that I had to that I had to sly yeah I thought that also in terms of reading about you there what you had done was to in a sense understand that this George Smiley was a classic character in the same way that Hamlet is a classic character and therefore in someone that is a classic character it lends itself to different interpretations because it will be performed by so many different actors but there's a motor lizard it's like a little wheel that's in smiling it's his running condition there's a melancholy there's a as a disenchantment he said he's a disillusioned romantic there's a sort of heaviness and the sadness to him that that Guiness mayor broke because he was older than me also he was he was seventeen nearly 70 when he played the role but they're they're just innate characteristics about smiley that the you have to follow the signposts they are they are there and no matter excuse me no matter how different you want to be you you're you're going to be led there and and I knew that going I knew that going in that that they're not not doing an impersonation but but you are your following a man you're following a great actor who has climbed the mountain and reached the peak and and put his flag there and and and is sort of looking down saying it coming then yeah yeah you want to climb it it there were there were ghosts and and Dragons in your head as they as they know that invariably are there in your head and I had to kind of I had to sort of walk through that fire and played a trick with myself exactly I said this is a let me this is a classic role and so and that and that's how I convinced myself to say to say yes in the book John Locke already described smiley as follows small pudgy at best middle-aged he was by appearance one of London's meek who do not inherit the earth his legs were short his gait anything but I agile his dress costly ill-fitting and extremely wet there you are right there there's some of them there's there some of them right there I am NOT all those things but I think he can physically the silhouette of smiley I I think can be many things uh um as you probably know James Mason you laid him her version of India I think Anthony Hopkins denim elet yeah so there have been a few there benefit of a few a few Smiley's this is what his wife said she described him as a reptile that can regulate his body temperature quote George's like a swift and at once told Hayden who was her lover and Anna here he cuts down his body temperature until it's the same as the environment I have been quoting that passage for three months because of this you know doing press for the movie and doing Q&A is and often the question I'm asked is how do you begin to you get into George how do you start to create George and the passage I have quoted again and again and again is that one so what does that passage mean to you that's the key to that's the key to George that's the whole physical the key to George that that to me is I've said this I've said this before in my humble opinion for me acting is not intellectual it's it's a sensation it's it's a feeling and that gives me that tells me so much about that man he's not it that is not a man who is who is there's little there's very little ego there he's not frenetic he's not he's not busy there's a there's a wonderful sort of stillness to two smiley and that is the that was the key that unlocked the door for me that how how fitting that you that you quote that is he also a man who would control played brilliantly by John Hurt more about him later but that knew that he would get his man from the get-go I think there's no doubt how do we I think beggary in his mind there is no wonderful thing about smiley is there's no sort of self aggrandizement there's no there is no there's no ego it operates with moral certainty old values he's he's of the old his of that generation what they called the 39 45s was there with with her you know but he sort of learned at the knee of control he is always three or four moves ahead of you he is a master sort of manipulator of of bureaucracy he sir his his his his his just his he's like this table his his his his oaken straw he's oaken strong and reliable and

Channel: Metrazol Electricity

Views: 74,006

Keywords: oscar, nominee, jimmy, kimmel, hd, best, actor, artist, 2012, dracula, sid, vicious, shakespeare, george, smiley, meaning, melancholy, spy, thriller, espionage, award, sequel

Id: bCjCsWWhcfQ

Length: 14min 32sec (872 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 27 2012