Gary Oldman, one of Britain's finest actors, confirmed that his knack for landing prominent roles started early during an appearance on comedian Josh Widdicombe's BBC Radio 2 show. The legendary actor, known for films such as The Firm, JFK, The Fifth Element, and the TV series Slow Horses, received an unexpected reminder that his acting talents once earned him the lead in a school nativity play at the expense of a childhood friend.
Discussing his illustrious career with Widdicombe on Sunday, Oldman, 68, reminisced about his early role as Joseph after Christopher Carey, a former classmate at London's Monson Primary School in the late 1960s, called in to discuss his involvement. 'It's 60 years since we last spoke,' Carey told the actor, who remarkably remembered him instantly. 'I know that I got the part in the nativity play. I got the part of Joseph, so in my mind I'm embellishing it by saying it was the day before the play, that I got pulled aside to be told I was given the part of the shepherd or the sheep. The one who replaced me was Gary Oldman. Do you remember that? Or have I made that up over the years?'
Evidently amused, Oldman joked: 'I think I may have replaced you, Chris. Even back then, they could tell... they could see the spark!'
Oldman's portrayal of slovenly detective Jackson Lamb in Apple TV series Slow Horses, a critically acclaimed adaptation of Mick Herron's London Rules book series, has earned him a new legion of younger fans over recent years. The Oscar-winning actor, who once portrayed tragic punk icon Sid Vicious and JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, says Lamb is one of his all-time favorite roles. 'Where would he be in the canon, as it were? I think up there with you know, Darkest Hour, Tinker Tailor,' he said after collecting his MBE in October.
The star won his Oscar for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in the 2017 film Darkest Hour. He was Oscar-nominated for 2011 hit Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and again for 2020's Mank. Oldman has played Lamb—the shabby, brash, seemingly uninterested leader of the group of MI5 agents in spy purgatory at Slough House—since Slow Horses debuted in 2022. In Season 5, suspicions are raised when the team's tech nerd Roddy Ho is dating a glamorous woman. But as London is hit with a series of bizarre events, the Slow Horses spot an old agency technique to destabilize regimes. 'We're getting a taste of our own poison,' Oldman added.
With a sixth season shot, and production due to start on Season 7 in November, the 67-year-old star says Lamb has become the character he has 'inhabited' consistently the longest. From the start, he has made a physical commitment to Jackson's worse-for-wear look—including putting on extra body fat and living with 'Lamb hair.' He considers it a 'small price to pay' to avoid adding to the 'thousands of hours' he has racked up in the makeup artist's chair over the course of his career. 'So it's of my own choosing, really, that I've got to walk around with a terrible haircut and scruff on my chin and go to Windsor Castle, meet the future king, you know, and go "Sorry, I apologise about all of this, but, you know, I start work in a month,"' he said, with a laugh.
