An ICON and a MAN

GARY OLDMAN AND JOE WRIGHT ON WINSTON CHURCHILL

Words, in the new movie Darkest Hour, are weapons. Set roughly during the same time period as Dunkirk, between May and June 1940, the Second World War drama takes place not on the beaches of northern France, where hundreds of Allied soldiers were cornered by German troops, but in the backrooms of England’s war cabinet. It is there that the newly installed prime minister, Winston Churchill (played by Gary Oldman), struggles with how to rally Parliament and the British people for the coming Battle of Britain.

Oldman, who underwent a remarkable metamorphosis to play the iconic politician, is a front-runner for a best actor Oscar nomination. While in Washington, D.C., recently for a preview screening of the new film, the 59-year-old British actor sat down with director Joe Wright, 45, to talk about the historical film’s surprisingly contemporary resonance. in the space of four weeks.

He generally used Anglo-Saxon words. They’re shorter, more muscular, not particularly flowery or intellectual. But they hold great intellectual weight. These extraordinary blunt and vital words are so much a part of the British psyche.

I’ve made some films that were very much image based: Anna Karenina and Pan, for instance. Here, I wanted to engage with the purest drama. It’s interesting that both Chris Nolan and I seem to be interested in a return to a minimalist esthetic. In a way, Dunkirk has no words in it, and ours has lots of them.

No. He famously would go and talk to Londoners and meet them at their houses, especially during and after the Blitz. He would get quite dewyeyed and have a little cry with them. One of the main narrative arcs for me in the film is the connection between Winston and the public. At the start of the film, as we see him driving through London, he is completely disconnected. Over the course of the movie, he comes into an intense union with the public, to the point where he is then able to speak their hearts.

They were far from a pain in the ass. First of all, you know what you’re getting into. You have to surrender to shaving your head every morning. This was the year of surrendering to Winston. We had four weeks of rehearsal, on top of 50 days of shooting, which is unheard of. But before all of that happens, you work in isolation. I call it “kitchen acting.” The countertop in the kitchen is higher than the table, and I like to put the script on it, and I glance down, walk around the house, come back, make a cup of tea. What I’m looking for is a physical sensation. I’m trying to find (imitating Churchill’s lisping voice and pouting lower lip) that sound in my mouth. When everything was put together and I looked in the mirror after many makeup tests and we felt that we’d got him, I suddenly realized that I didn’t have to do so much with the lip, because the makeup was doing it for me.

Part of the courtship was making sure that we both felt safe and trusted each other. A lot of directors don’t really like actors.

If a director comes in and says, “I saw dailies last night. It’s good. It’s going to be a cracker.” You float on air, but you have to have trust them.

Most actors hate the feeling of being handled. I don’t think I used those words. true.

I don’t know, and I don’t think it’s my job to know. When I came on board this project in January 2016, the world was a very different place. It had zero topicality. Suddenly, the film had a kind prescience. That’s a really important question. a terrible script meeting where a studio executive brought in a little book of Churchill’s greatest quotes, and said, “You’ve got to get this one in, and this one, and this one.” I got quite angry and said, “Listen, that’s exactly the antithesis of what we’re trying to do.” Soundbite-ism obscures our relationship to the character of Winston Churchill.

For me, everything else serves the personal. Yes, I find the history interesting — and, dare I say, educational — but what I really wanted to tell was a story about a character who doesn’t fit in.