Gary Oldman slays dragons to play Churchill

Gary Oldman has played Beethoven, Lee Harvey Oswald, Sid Vicious and Pontius Pilate in his 35-year acting career, but he says taking on Britain’s Winston Churchill was his most daunting assignment.

Months of research, four hours for makeup and costumes every day, and capturing the famous voice of Britain’s wartime prime minister were just some of the challenges Oldman faced in his preparation for the movie Darkest Hour.

“Churchill is arguably the greatest Briton who ever lived to many people and he has been portrayed many times before. You just have to slay those dragons and put it aside,” Oldman, 59, said.

“It fills you with fear, but that’s what gives you the best work,” he added. “I’m in almost every scene in the movie and I had long working days and hours in the makeup chair. I had to come in every day with energy.”

The film, directed by Joe Wright, is set in May and June 1940, when Britain appeared on the brink of defeat in World War II and Churchill faced deep divisions in his own government, the military and the monarchy.

With this role, the Londonborn actor, director and producer, is already being tipped as a front-runner for what could be his first Oscar.

The preparation also included watching and listening to documentary footage of Churchill, and a total face prosthetic for Oldman, who bears little resemblance to the British leader. The plethora of Churchill’s recorded speeches made it even harder.

“Those cadences and those rhythms in his speech were more prominent when he was publicly speaking. It’s how we think he sounds, but he doesn’t,” Oldman explains.

Meanwhile, director Joe Wright says, “It’s a movie about the power of words to change the world and the course of history. One of my favorite lines is where Lord Halifax says Churchill ‘mobilized the English language and sent it into battle’.” REUTERS

Churchill is arguably the greatest Briton who ever lived to many people and he has been portrayed many times before. You have to slay those dragons and put it aside

GARY OLDMAN, ACTOR