In a year marked by performances notable for their subtlety (think of George Clooney in "The Descendants," Glenn Close in "Albert Nobbs"), Gary Oldman's turn as master spy George Smiley in Tomas Alfredson's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" might be the most subtle of all.
For more than two hours, Oldman barely raises his voice — this is a man who's so controlled and wary that he doesn't even take off his specs when he goes for a swim.
But with the smallest of gestures and the slightest of inflections, Oldman lets you see Smiley's brilliance, his steel, even his flashes of sadism. Initially known for charged, flashy performances in the likes of "Sid and Nancy," "Bram Stoker's Dracula" and "True Romance," Oldman has learned to dial things back to the bare minimum And never to better effect than in Alfredson's quietly engrossing and marvelously moody spy drama.
Also read: Review: Ice Cold 'Tinker Tailor' Burns Hot
His performance could correct a situation as stunning as it is appalling: Gary Oldman has never even been nominated for an Academy Award.
Not that Oldman himself is paying all that much attention.
Congratulations on the Annie nomination.
The what?
The Annies. They're for animated films. You were nominated for Voice Acting in a Feature Production for "Kung Fu Panda 2."
Was I? I didn't know. [Breaks out laughing] How about that! That's splendid. I'm thrilled to hear that.
Let's talk about a very different movie: Your work is "Tinker, Tailor" is so subdued, so low-key. You've done understated roles before — notably in the "Dark Knight" series — but is it tricky to play a character who doesn't do much?
No, I found him very liberating. When you’re playing a character who physicalizes emotion, and you are asked to be angry or emotional or tearful or violent, those scenes demand something of you.
I would feel sometimes like it was a black cloud over my day. I would get to work and feel like I was standing at the foot of a mountain, looking up at the peak and thinking, fuck, I've got to climb that today.
The first time we spoke, almost 20 years ago, I remember you talked about how rough roles wore you out even then, and how you were tired of using the same memories to take you to the dark places you needed to go.
You hope the resources are there. And you know the well, the familiar well that you go to produce it. It could get very tiring, doing that, and kind a bit daunting.
[Pauses] I remember an incident on the set of "JFK." I understand it now, but I didn't at the time. It was a scene with Joe Pesci and a group of us. I think Tommy Lee Jones was in the scene, and Kevin Bacon. And Joe had to get really fired up, and get angry. And he came over to me and whispered, "Come with me."
We were in a little dining area, and he took me to the kitchen and said, "Hit me." And I said, "I beg your pardon?" He said (shifts into Pesci imitation), "C'mon, fucking hit me!" He said, "I don't know what it is, if I'm getting older or what, but I can't get there anymore. Just fucking hit me." I think I hit him, and then he said, "Hit me harder!" It was like a scene out of "Raging Bull." [laughs]
I was a young man, and he was probably in his 40s. And now I see what he meant. It's hard just getting it up, you know?
And "Tinker, Tailor" wasn't like that?
It was the joy of coming in and putting on a suit and knowing that I was the smartest man in the room. And I was going to sit in that chair and ask a few questions, and all the other fireworks were going to go off around me. It's wonderful that I could have an internal life, and I didn't have to explode.
But you have to make sure that you're conveying to the viewer that you're the smartest man in the room.
Yeah. But some of that has to do with how a scene is structured, and what the other characters do. You work with someone like Tom Hardy — he's emotional, and I'm very poker-faced with him. He would do a lot of the work, which was helping me.
And the thing that you had here was the book. Even though Tomas had reduced the story in a scene to four lines and a little glance, you never felt that you had nothing to support you. Because the subtext was the book, and you could always come with that. That would give you a life.
Working with a great ensemble like this, were you seeing a lot of different acting styles?
I really don't know how other people work. We never really discussed it. I once heard Peter Sellers talk about this, and he said, "I don't really like all the work, building up to it, and I don't care much for rehearsal, and when it's done it's done, and I'm moving on." But the thing that he loved was the moment of doing it. In the moment of doing it, he loved being an actor.
And the thing about the work that is still thrilling is that you only can do so much work on your own. You can work in your kitchen or your bedroom or your study or wherever you work – I call it kitchen acting. I don't know what Colin Firth's doing in his kitchen, but I'm gonna get a glimpse at it when I get there. And that's what's interesting about it. I wonder how they're gonna hit the ball back.
So were there scenes that went in different directions from what you expected, based on what other actors did?
John Hurt was a little more emotional in one scene than I imagined. But he played it beautifully, and I thought, "Oh, he's taking it here." So yeah, that surprised me.
But the thing is so beautifully written, so beautifully shaded. It's like a very detailed map that you follow. I raised my voice in a rehearsal when I say, "Well then, what are you, Bill?" And Tomas liked that very much. So we did that. But that is the only time I think with Smiley where the needle moves.
I loved the feel of the spaces depicted in the film – this fading, ramshackle world that might once have been state of the art. but now the spaces have fallen into disrepair, and maybe the guys in those spaces as well.
And the new school, the new wave is coming in. We're in that interesting part of the '70s. It's still very much an analog world, but Steve Jobs is really just around the corner, isn’t he? We're here in '73, and he's just a few years away. The world would change.
You know, Tomas talks about atmosphere, and he talks about the palette of the movie. He wanted to capture the smell of damp tweed in a color. He said, if damp tweed had a color, what would it look like? I mean, he's such an original. I don’t know directors who talk like that.
The first time we spoke, you were renting a house in Beverly Hills that Richard Burton and the Dalai Lama had both lived in, at different times …
That house was on Trudy Drive. Was this pre the earthquake?
Yes. It was '93, and the earthquake was '94.
I was still there, and the house took a tumble, the chimney collapsed. Yeah, Burton would sit in that house [shifts into Richard Burton voice] staring at that liquor cabinet. That's a while ago now.