- 6/17/2025
"EVERYONE!!!" watch as Gary Oldman tries to guess lines from some of his most well-known roles. Hear him name his favorite Batman actor, reveal the role he would have liked to play in the upcoming 'Harry Potter' TV series and address the reports of his retirement from acting.
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00:00What the f- what the hell is this dialogue?
00:02Now I know I'm pretty, but I ain't as pretty as a couple of d***.
00:05I don't know what drugs I was taking that day.
00:22Everyone.
00:24It's from, well, Leon, the professional.
00:29Everyone!
00:33Shall I tell you the story behind this?
00:35I was on the set and we were shooting that scene.
00:39I think I played it, you know, bring me everyone.
00:43The actor said, everyone?
00:45And they said, yeah, everyone.
00:48And as a joke, to make Luc Besson laugh,
00:53because we had that sort of kind of relationship.
00:55I mean, sometimes he would shoot film on me and ask me to do a scene,
00:59like as Robert De Niro or...
01:01And he said, let's just do one more,
01:02but now play it like...
01:04And I just did this really loud like that just to make him laugh.
01:09I do remember specifically going to the sound guy,
01:12saying, be careful of your ears,
01:16because I'm going to do this one really, really loud.
01:19And I did that and it made Luke laugh and it ended up in the film.
01:25So it's become a quotable, iconic line,
01:32which actually was a joke.
01:36Me having just a laugh.
01:39And that's this one.
01:40You'll forgive me if I forgo the kiss,
01:42my sleeping me a moth, but the time has come to awake.
01:47Ah, that's lost in space.
01:51Forgive me if I forgo the kiss, my sleeping me a moth,
01:55but the time has come to awake.
01:58I got sort of typecast for a while and it was sort of...
02:03I became kind of like the poster boy for, you know, the rent-a-villain.
02:07Sort of, oh, well, we'll get...
02:09We need a villain and we'll get Gary.
02:11I don't know how that happened, but it happened.
02:14And it was fun for a while, but actually I eventually just put a stop to it
02:19and then it got a little old.
02:22But they are fun to play.
02:24And this particularly, like the fifth element,
02:28much like Lost in Space, they're comic villains.
02:33It was fun.
02:34Great cast.
02:35I thought the story...
02:39It was a lot to put...
02:41It was a lot of movie in two hours.
02:44But it was fun to play because it's a villain
02:47with a sort of a tongue in the cheek or, you know, a little twinkle in the eye.
02:51It's like bigger than life, you know.
02:55I have crossed oceans of time to find you.
02:59I mean...
03:02No, I'm kidding.
03:03That's Dracula.
03:05I have crossed oceans of time to find you.
03:13Everyone and its mother have played Dracula over the years.
03:17I said, well, I don't know how I'm going to play the part,
03:20but I would love to say that line.
03:23It was a case of I could hear it in my head, but I couldn't physically do it.
03:28I couldn't vocally do it.
03:30I could hear the potential of what I wanted to do with it.
03:34But I had a feeling about it.
03:36And then I wanted to work with Coppola, who is one of the greatest living directors.
03:44One of the great directors of all time.
03:46I remember exactly where I was sitting when I read the script and read that line.
03:53I was in the trailer for JFK.
03:56I was working with Oliver of crossed oceans of time to find you.
04:00And I thought, wow, that's a great line.
04:03Who wouldn't want to say that?
04:09I did my waiting 12 years of it.
04:12That's Harry Potter.
04:13That's Sirius Black.
04:15I did my waiting 12 years of it.
04:20They were pretty small fry in the beginning.
04:23I think the first two books that they'd won a smarty prize, which is like a candy.
04:30I wasn't really aware of them until I got cast.
04:34The assistant to David Heyman, who produced them, had read them and said,
04:40I think these would make a good film.
04:42You should actually take one of them home and read it.
04:45And he did.
04:46Well, he said he did.
04:48That was the beginning of a phenomenon.
04:52It was interesting working with Alfonso Caron.
04:56I think he did a spectacular job with number three, which is when I joined.
05:01Daniel Ratcliffe would have been about 11 when I first met him.
05:05They were all delightful, super smart, super talented.
05:09But it was a nice, great time.
05:11Yeah, I'm very proud to have been in it.
05:13And my personal feeling is they're not going to go anywhere near people that were connected with the original.
05:19I'm actually very intrigued to see it because so much of the books were cut.
05:25I would have fancied a go at Dumbledore.
05:27I'm about to get getting up there now to the right age for Dumbledore.
05:32Toss the card.
05:33There we go.
05:34So we'll hunt him because he can take it because he's not our hero.
05:42He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector.
05:45That's the very end of Batman Begins, isn't it?
05:49Is it The Dark Knight?
05:53I've got one wrong.
05:54There you go.
05:55That was close, though.
05:56So we'll hunt him.
06:01Because he can take it.
06:02I honestly think Christian Bale was fabulous back then.
06:06It's much like, obviously, I grew up with Sean Connery as Bond.
06:12I've always thought, well, there's really no one to top him.
06:16And then Daniel Craig comes along.
06:18That's not putting down what Pierce did in any way.
06:22You're straight jacketed by the formula and by the material and the scripts.
06:29And they wanted something a little darker and edgier with the new Bond.
06:34And I thought Craig was just spectacular in it.
06:38And I felt that Christian did the same thing with Batman.
06:43Who do you think is the best Gordon?
06:48No, you don't have to answer that.
06:50You're fucking useless, the lot of you.
06:52Working with you has been the lowest point in the disappointing career.
06:55Jackson Lamb and Slow Horses is a gift that keeps on giving.
07:14Nice to be involved with something that's got a pedigree.
07:19It's a quality show.
07:22We do our best, really, every season to make it as good as, if not better, than the previous seasons.
07:29And the people are sublime, and the people are just wonderful.
07:32A lowest point in his career, but a very high point in mine.
07:39I don't like warriors. Too narrow-minded, no subtlety.
07:43And worse, they fight for hopeless causes.
07:45Okay, I'm not, it doesn't, the actual dialogue doesn't ring a bell.
07:56And the reason why it doesn't ring a bell is because I didn't completely physically inhabit this, did I?
08:03Is this Kung Fu Panda?
08:07Am I not Lord Shen when I said this?
08:12What the hell is this dialogue?
08:15I've got no bloody idea what that's from.
08:18And all that warriors, too narrow-minded, no subtlety.
08:20And worse, they fight for hopeless causes.
08:26Really?
08:27It doesn't even ring a bell now you've told me.
08:31It's this dialogue to Ian Holm.
08:33I say it's a tricky, do I?
08:35I'm sorry, I've got, I don't know what, I don't know what drugs I was taking that day.
08:40I don't, I have no clue.
08:44It's a fun thing to do.
08:46I didn't like the haircut much.
08:48Or the rubber.
08:49Jean-Paul Gaultier designed the costumes.
08:52Oh, that rubber.
08:54Bruce didn't like that rubber either.
08:56Very hot and sweaty affair.
08:59It's become quite a cult thing, isn't it?
09:01The number of people that say to me that this is their favourite film.
09:06They haven't seen In the Mood for Love, have they?
09:10We're not so very different, you and I.
09:12We've both spent our lives looking for the weakness in one another's systems.
09:17That would be smiley, wouldn't it?
09:19I loved playing George.
09:33There was a time afterwards when we wrapped it all up that I sort of missed him.
09:39He was all-knowing and all-seeing.
09:41I approached him sort of like a wise owl.
09:45You know, they're very still.
09:48And then they just move their head.
09:50And there's a quality about him I thought that was very owl-like.
09:55It was very nice to play that rather than be, you know, frenetic.
10:00And some of the roles I've played, you know.
10:02It was the first time I was actually nominated for an Academy Award.
10:06I remember very specifically where I was.
10:10We were in Berlin doing press.
10:14And that gentleman over there in the corner, who's fast asleep,
10:18he came into the room and said,
10:21congratulations, you're an Academy Award nominee, which is very exciting.
10:26Oh, well, you cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.
10:30That would have been Winston Churchill.
10:33Darkest Hour.
10:33You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.
10:40Well, that holds a special place in my heart for all sorts of reasons.
10:44It was a wonderful project to be involved with.
10:46It was a real honour to play Winston.
10:50I actually proposed to my wife as Winston,
10:55well, not as Winston, but while I was dressed up,
10:57actually, I proposed to her in the war room on the set to top it all.
11:04It gave me an Oscar.
11:06Thank you, Winston.
11:07Except when one meets the Queen,
11:12one normally hasn't threatened to ram one's typewriter up her arse.
11:19Except when one meets the Queen,
11:21one normally hasn't threatened to ram one's typewriter.
11:26Is it prick up your ears?
11:28Is it?
11:29Except when one meets the Queen,
11:30one normally hasn't threatened to ram one's typewriter up her arse.
11:34It was sort of close to my heart in a way.
11:38I discovered Orton and always liked his writing and obviously having a theatre background.
11:44So it wasn't sort of unfamiliar territory.
11:48First and only time actually working with Stephen Frears, which I enjoyed enormously.
11:52We shot a sequence of Joe and Halliwell, who was his lover, in Morocco.
12:00Because they would frequent back in the day.
12:04This is where they would holiday.
12:06On the very, very last day, Stephen had picked up a bug and it was literally coming out of both ends.
12:16So he directed me from the toilet over a walkie-talkie.
12:21There's no monitors.
12:22He wasn't sitting there on a walkie-talkie with a monitor.
12:26So he said, you'll be great.
12:28He said, but the bad news is, he said, we haven't got any more film.
12:32So you've got to do this in one take.
12:37I mean, good or bad, it's in the movie.
12:40There was just one take.
12:44You cannot capture a man's entire life in two hours.
12:47All you can hope to is to leave the impression of one.
12:49We had a director who had a point of view and knew what film he was making.
13:04We had a very good script, a very good cast.
13:09I found some footage with him in a cameo, tiny little walk-on in a film.
13:18This is Mankiewicz.
13:19He was quite elusive in terms of finding anything on him.
13:24I saw his brother, Joe Mankiewicz, being interviewed.
13:30They're very similar.
13:32They're not too far apart in age.
13:35And I thought, well, let's say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
13:40And so I took the springboard for it, the idea from the brother.
13:47I'd seen Citizen Kane, so I was sort of familiar with the world.
13:52It's pretty good.
13:54Is it the greatest film ever made?
13:57No.
13:59Don't think so.
14:01But boy, it's got some fantastic stuff in it.
14:05And, of course, Orson Welles said, someone approached him in a restaurant once
14:10and came up to him and said, Mr. Welles, I just have a question for you.
14:15The whole story is about this, you know, rosebud that ends up being the sleigh.
14:22On his deathbed, when he drops the globe and he says the words rosebud,
14:27there's no one in the room to hear him say it.
14:31And evidently, Welles said, yeah, I know.
14:35Shhh.
14:39Because it makes rubbish.
14:42It'll make rubbish.
14:44The whole thing falls apart.
14:50If it weren't for me mum's kindness, we'd be on the fucking streets.
14:55I have no clue.
14:56If it weren't for me mum's kindness, we'd be on the fucking streets.
15:11Oh, am I in a sort of leopard skin underwear or something and we're running up the street
15:19and she looks in the reflection and goes, I look like Stevie Nicks.
15:23I look like fucking Stevie Nicks in hippie clothes.
15:27I look like Stevie Nicks.
15:28I look like Stevie Nicks.
15:28Well, at the time it certainly wasn't money and it certainly wasn't the consistency of work
15:34because it offered neither of those things.
15:39You get bitten by the bug.
15:42Once you got it, it's like becoming a vampire, you know, once you get bitten, it's sort of in your system.
15:54I've been lucky, you see, I have worked consistently and have been able to practice and get better at it over the years.
16:05And there's a certain age that you get to where, I'm not saying anytime soon, but you do see retirement sort of there on the horizon.
16:13I mean, the great thing about acting is, is that in a way, there's no, there's no retirement age.
16:19Let's put it this way.
16:20I'm very happy where I am.
16:21I'm very happy with Jackson Lamb occupying most of my time.
16:27So for now, I'm, I'm a slow horse.
16:31Now, I know I'm pretty, but I ain't as pretty as a couple of titties.
16:37True romance.
16:38I know I'm pretty, but I ain't as pretty.
16:43It's a couple of titties.
16:44When the fox hears the rabbit scream, he comes and, oh, that's Mason Verger.
16:49When the fox hears the rabbit scream, he comes and running.
16:55But not to help.
16:56I am not resisting arrest.
16:58I am not resisting arrest.
17:01Lee Harvey Oswald.
17:03I am not resisting arrest.
17:06I am not resisting arrest.
17:13Well, I am not resisting arrest.
17:16I am not resisting arrest.
17:19I am not resisting arrest.
17:20I am not pricing.
17:21This is something like man is stealing but the wrong.
17:25I am sorry.
17:26Originally, Margaret jumps in turn.
17:27I have anš woman fromitchellum, here.
17:28I am not demonstrating right now.
17:30Pull him that way.
17:32Godard does evil.
17:33I am sorry I am on one secret that I would leave.
17:35I am not本当 into arrest.
17:35I'm careful.
17:36I am not stunning and not doing what to do.
17:37I am only surprised.
17:38I am not interviewing her.
17:39What I have a 대박 criteria by you.
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