'Dark Knight': Q&A with Gary Oldman
By Emily Christianson, Hollywood.com Staff
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Thursday, July 17, 2008
HW: You started commenting on Heath Ledger’s performance in interviews before you even screened the film. What was it that impacted you?
GO: I got a sense of it the first morning I worked with him, and uh, I thought this kid’s a bit good! And he was doing the scene himself, and I called a respective friend of mine who asked, ‘What’s Heath liked?’ And he said he’s sort of tuned in, it’s like a frequency – he’s found a radio station that we can’t hear. He found something. That happens to actors sometimes… You know, I think over the years when I think of performances – [Jack] Nicholson in Cuckoo's Nest. Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon. That sort of work where you look and go, ‘Wow, that’s going beyond… that’s special. I think he’s sort of done that. I think there are times when an actor would just like… go through the sound barrier.
HW: What was he like as a person?
GO: Oh, great. The saddest thing is really, it’s a shame he’s not here to talk about it. I don’t mean this in a disrespectful way – it’s just Christian [Bale] is very private, it’s quite intense, and it’s very private. In the way he works on Batman, you know? That’s not to say he doesn’t have a sense of humor. But it’s more fun to hang out with Heath! Because people want, because he died, and I’m not saying you guys, but people want a dark story. He was so obsessed with the character, and he was contaminated with the Joker, and he couldn’t sleep, and all of that stuff. In-between takes he would sit on the curbside and smoke a cigarette, and laugh, and talk about his daughter Matilda. And I thought he was a beautiful kid. He was wonderful. I had a lot of affection for him. And he’s charismatic. You need a new word for charismatic…and he’s probably going to get an Oscar nomination…I think they don’t always acknowledge this kind of genre. They don’t see this work – I don’t know why.
HW: This is a brainier than the average summer action pic, wouldn’t you say?
GO: There’s about 10 times more things going on, yes? Yeah. And it’s darker… I mean it’s really dark, the movie, isn’t it? I was amazed that [Chris] got a PG-13. And Heath, I think, it’s one of arguably the most psychologically, the disturbing villain I’ve ever seen, a bad guy, in a movie.