Not everyone liked or appreciated Gary Oldman in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, but he did manage to wear the heck out of those rectangular-frame glasses, so you have to give him some credit there.
The movies came at a weird time in Oldman’s career: he unfortunately had to turn down certain acting opportunities after gaining sole custody of his three children after divorcing his third wife in 2000. Luckily, he was able to secure roles in a handful of big-budget movies so he could be a dad and Gotham’s police commissioner and a dog-wizard hybrid.
The Slow Horses star stopped by Drew Barrymore’s talk show/celebrity confessional show where he revealed some of his past career moves. “At 42 years old, I woke up divorced and I had custody of [my] boys,” Oldman said. “That, in itself, was… that was hard because there was a shift in the industry where a lot of productions were being [filmed in] Hungary, Budapest, Prague, Australia, you know, all of these places. So, I turned down a lot of work,” he recalled.
The actor then praised the Batman and Harry Potter franchises because they were able to give him that flexibility. “Thank God for Harry Potter,” Oldman began. But he wasn’t being thankful for the magical memories or cultural impact. Instead, he was happy because it was a low-key job for him. “I tell you, the two — Batman and Harry Potter — really, they saved me, because it meant that I could do the least amount of work for the most amount of money and then be home with the kids,” he explained.
He’s right! It’s so easy to play a police officer in Gotham because most of the time, they weren’t doing anything anyway. That’s why Batman exists. As for Harry Potter, Oldman portrayed a slowly burning fire log, so yeah, it was probably a pretty easy gig for him. He also probably seemed really cool to his kids at the time, so it all worked out. Then he had to go and play Mank.