At the end of last year, Gary Oldman appeared on a podcast and made several quite critical remarks about his own portrayal of Sirius Black in the Harry Potter films. Since Sirius is a beloved character among Potter fans, Oldman’s criticism of his own work sparked a lot of opinions online. Now, during an appearance at Cannes, he has explained his comments.
“What I meant is that any artist, any actor or painter, is always hypercritical of their own work. If you’re not, and you’re satisfied with what you do, to me that’s the equivalent of death. If I looked at my performance and thought, ‘My God, I’m just fantastic in this,’ that would be a sad day.”
Additionally, the actor shared how he approached bringing Sirius to life and what he would do if he had the chance to portray the character again.
“There was such secrecy around the novels that they were kept under lock and key. If I had known from the beginning, if I had read all five books and seen how the character develops, I might have approached it differently. I might have looked at him differently and colored him with different hues.
“When I took on Harry Potter, all I had was the book ‘Prisoner of Azkaban’ and this singular image of this person. One book in the library of Sirius Black. That’s what I meant. It’s not that I look at the film and say it’s a terrible film or that I’m terrible, I just wish it had been under different circumstances. That’s what I meant, not to offend people who love the film.”
