Gary’s set to come in from the cold
Gary Oldman is prepared to come in from the cold to play the unobtrusive but brilliant spymaster, George Smiley, again. Twelve years ago, Oldman successfully took on John le Carre’s ‘breathtakingly ordinary’ secret intelligence officer in a film adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy — following alec Guinness’s flawless portrait in the BBC’s 1979 version.
Guinness played the bespectacled spook a second time, three years later, in Smiley’s People.
The author’s estate now controls the rights to that one, and they’re planning a TV re-boot. ‘Gary would very much love to play George Smiley again,’ Douglas Urbanski, the actor’s long time business partner, told me on Wednesday night.
In fact, Oldman has told me so himself. Several years ago he was in discussions to lead a big screen version of Smiley’s People, but there were unresolved rights issues at the time, and the idea was abandoned.
The new Smiley’s People would form part of an epic series of seasons devoted to le Carre’s novels, beginning with the novelist’s 1963 breakthrough, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. The project has been in development for several years; but filming could finally start later this year, or early next, a source close to le Carre’s heirs told me.
The Smiley’s People mini-series would likely follow that. The plot calls for George to come out of retirement to smoke out his most feared enemy: Karla, the cunning head of Soviet intelligence.
If it all comes together, Oldman will have to put on a few pounds to play the portly Circus ringmaster. Last time round, he gained weight by indulging in treacle sponge and custard. ‘I called it eating for George,’ Oldman, who won an Oscar for portraying Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, told me.
THe actor has been honing his spycraft skills recently, playing an altogether different variant to Smiley in Slow Horses. The appleTV+ creation, based on the delicious series of books by Mick Herron, features a motley crew of ‘f***-ups and rejects’, as Oldman put it, from MI5. He plays the misfits’ wily boss, Jackson Lamb, ‘a farting, belching, working class version of George Smiley’.
apple have allowed Oldman, Urbanski and fellow producers See-Saw Films, to devote six episodes to each of the Herron tomes, with 12 episodes in each season. The cast includes Jack Lowden, Kristin Scott Thomas (who played Clementine Churchill in Darkest Hour) and Jonathan Pryce.
Those who have viewed a rough cut tell me that it’s sensational.