Conversations with Gary Oldman Moderated by Jenelle Riley Decemeber 3, 2011 Earlier this year, at the 2011 Empire Awards, Gary Oldman was honored with the Icon Award for Achievement. An acclaimed presence in motion pictures for 25 years, he is regarded as one of the foremost actors of his generation. Mr. Oldman is known to millions the world over for playing Sirius Black (Harry Potter’s godfather), Commissioner Jim Gordon (Batman/Bruce Wayne’s crime-fighting partner), Dracula, Beethoven, Pontius Pilate, Lee Harvey Oswald, Joe Orton, and Sid Vicious, to name just a few of his iconic characterizations whose ranks George Smiley now joins. Over the past 18 years, the U.K. native has appeared in 11 movies that have opened in the #1 position at the box office. As part of the two most successful franchises in movie history, he has appeared in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, directed by Alfonso Cuarón, Mike Newell, and David Yates, respectively; and Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises (opening in 2012). Mr. Oldman’s acting career began in 1979, and for several years he worked exclusively in the theatre; from 1985 through 1989, he alternated film work with stage work at London’s Royal Court Theatre. Among his early telefilms were Mike Leigh’s Meantime and the late Alan Clarke’s The Firm. His features include Alex Cox’s Sid and Nancy; Stephen Frears’ Prick Up Your Ears; Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead; Phil Joanou’s State of Grace; Oliver Stone’s JFK; Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula; Peter Medak’s Romeo is Bleeding; Tony Scott’s True Romance; Bernard Rose’s Immortal Beloved; Luc Besson’s The Professional (a.k.a. Leon) and The Fifth Element; Wolfgang Petersen’s Air Force One; the late Marc Rocco’s Murder in the First; Roger Young’s telefilm Jesus; Ridley Scott’s Hannibal; Albert and Allen Hughes’ The Book of Eli; and John Hillcoat’s upcoming The Wettest County. With Douglas Urbanski, Mr. Oldman produced the feature Nil by Mouth. The film marked his screenwriting and directing debut, and was selected to world premiere as the opening-night film of the 1997 [50th Anniversary of the] Cannes International Film Festival, at which the film’s leading lady Kathy Burke won the Best Actress award. Subsequent honors for Nil by Mouth included the prestigious Channel Four Director’s Prize, at the Edinburgh International Film Festival; 6 British Independent Film Award (BIFA) nominations, and 3 wins including for Ms. Burke and her fellow actors Ray Winstone and Laila Morse; the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay as well as BAFTA’s Alexander Korda Award for the Outstanding British Film of the Year, the latter shared by Mr. Oldman and Mr. Urbanski. The team’s subsequent productions have included Rod Lurie’s The Contender, starring Joan Allen and Jeff Bridges. The film received 2 Academy Award, 2 Golden Globe Award, and 3 Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, including one for Best Supporting Actor (Mr. Oldman); and the ensemble and the writer/director were honored with the Broadcast Film Critics Association’s Alan J. Pakula Award. He currently stars in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - the long-awaited feature film version of John le Carré’s classic bestselling novel. The time is 1973. The Cold War of the mid-20th Century continues to damage international relations. Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), a.k.a. MI6 and code-named the Circus, is striving to keep pace with other countries’ espionage efforts and to keep the U.K. secure. The head of the Circus, known as Control (John Hurt), personally sends dedicated operative Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) into Hungary. But Jim’s mission goes bloodily awry, and Control is forced out of the Circus – as is his top lieutenant, George Smiley (Gary Oldman), a career spy with razor-sharp senses. Estranged from his absent wife Ann, Smiley is soon called in to see undersecretary Oliver Lacon (Simon McBurney); he is to be rehired in secret at the government’s behest, as there is a gnawing fear that the Circus has long been compromised by a double agent, or mole, working for the Soviets and jeopardizing England. Supported by younger agent Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), Smiley parses Circus activities past and present. In trying to track and identify the mole, Smiley is haunted by his decades-earlier interaction with the shadowy Russian spy master Karla. The mole’s trail remains cold until maverick field agent Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy) unexpectedly contacts Lacon. While undercover in Turkey, Ricki has fallen for a betrayed married woman, Irina (Svetlana Khodchenkova), who claims to possess crucial intelligence. Separately, Smiley learns that Control narrowed down the list of mole suspects to five men. They are the ambitious Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), whom he had code-named Tinker; suavely confident Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), dubbed Tailor; stalwart Roy Bland (Ciarán Hinds), called Soldier; officious Toby Esterhase (David Dencik), dubbed Poor Man; and – Smiley himself. Even before the startling truth is revealed, the emotional and physical tolls on the players enmeshed in the deadly international spy game will escalate… Less