A tough start

1 Gary Oldman was born to a London sailor-turned-welder and his homemaker wife on March 21 1958. His father was an alcoholic who abandoned the family when Oldman was seven years old.

2 To support himself while at acting school in the 1970s, he did odd jobs. He worked on an assembly line, as a porter in an operating theatre, as a shoe salesman and in a slaughterhouse — in charge of beheading pigs.

3 Oldman’s problems with alcohol were well known during the early 1990s. He checked himself into rehab for alcoholism treatment in 1995.

4 He has been married five times and has three sons: Alfie Oldman (born 1988) from his first marriage to Lesley Manville, and Gulliver Flynn Oldman (born 1997) and Charlie John Oldman (born 1999) with Donya Fiorentino.

5 Oldman briefly married actress Uma Thurman in 1990. They met on the set of State of Grace but divorced after just two years together.