Gary Oldman gets a lot of mentions on this board (recently in the threadfor people deserving an Oscar), as should he. He was always a favorite of mine and an actor who always seems to disappear into his roles while still being alluring and excellent.
So I wonder – what is the quintessential Gary Oldman? Where do I go for the most Gary Oldman-ness?
Sorry, just to clarify what you’re asking for . . .
Is “Most Gary Oldman-ness” meant in contrast to Gary Oldman always disappearing into his roles?
or . . .
“Disappearig into his roles” being a quintessential Gary Oldman quality, would “Most Gary Oldman-ness” be best exemplified by roles into which he most disappears?
If the former, I actually think his Jim Gordon from the Batman movies is the most like how he- the actual guy- comes across in interviews, maybe also his Albert Milo in Basquiat.
If the latter, I’d say . . . oh, I guess Mason Verger in Hannibal would be an obvious choice.
My Gary Oldman “Primer” for someone unfamiliar with his work would be:
Sid and Nancy
Dracula
The Professional
The Fifth Element
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
True Romance
I think the quintessential Gary Oldman role is actually Sirius Black - wild-eyed, volatile, brilliant… but also decent, kind and warm. It’s basically the whole package in a single role.
I don’t know if there’s a “quintessential” Gary Oldman role, but my favorite will always be The Professional. So delightfully psychotic.
Honorable mention to his role as Beethoven in Immortal Beloved. Great range of acting skills in that one.
This was a very small role, but I think one of his most impressive performances was as Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK. He’s only in a few brief scenes, but his accuracy is uncanny. You feel like you’re watching actual, archived newsreel footage. Just spot on.
My favorite Gary Oldman movie is True Romance, in which he plays a black pimp.
I cannot, in good conscience, recommend the movie, but Oldman was one of the few good parts of Lost in Space. He did not play your typical Gary Oldman-style psychopath. He played Doctor Smith! In one scene, Doctor Smith and Major West were bickering, and if you closed your eyes, you could visualize the original actors doing the scene. Both Oldman and LeBlanc had the voices down pat.
Another vote for Jim Gordon in Batman…brilliant casting. Not at all a showy role, deliberately un-showy, in fact. You need a really good actor to pull it off and off he did pull it.
A-hem! The movie is called Leon. 
I first remember him from Sid & Nancy and Prick Up Your Ears, and those still remain the gold standard for me. He really ran a great risk, in the 90s, of being typecast as the over-the-top heavy, so I’m very grateful for the Potter & Batman films to show a warmer more empathetic and decent side.
For whatever tis datum is worth – my wife thought he was also the hottest Dracula ever.
I think Sid and Zorg are his best roles, but he’s such a great guy as Sirius that I want him for my godfather.
CMC fnord!
I don’t know if it is the most quintessential Gary Oldman role,l but I think the most quintisenntial Gary Oldman moment is in this scene form Leon
“Bennie, bring me everyone.”
“What do you mean everyone?”
“EVERYONE!!!”
Definitely Rosencrantz.
or Guildenstern.
Agreed with Rozencrantz and Sid and Nancy.
He has a great role as a nasty politician in The Contender. Also great performances by Joan Allen, Jeff Bridges, and Christian Slater.
Agreed. Movie villains have been taking lessons from that scene for 15 years now. Including Oldman himself when he showed up as the crazed Russian revolutionary in Air Force One.
Oldman is one of my favs. As Jack in “Romeo is Bleeding”, he so convincingly played a dirty cop in over his head. Although the action was implausible at times, I thought he did a great job portraying a sorry sack of …
For pure romance, I enjoyed “Dracula”, big noggin and all, although it strayed pretty far from the book.
However, Sid and Nancy", although disturbingly well-acted, has not achieved cult-status with me as with others. That has to do more with the subject matter than Oldman.
Americans may not be familiar with this early BBC film but it really is the quintessential Oldman. He plays a ruthless leader of a gang of football hooligans in The Firm.
It was the first time I’d seen him and I just knew he was destined for greatness.
My favorite of all time is Stansfield from The Professional, great movie all around and him as the villain is so perfect.
He’s a great character actor. Several years ago, before I started noticing him on everybody’s great actor lists, I started thinking about how he was Sid Vicious, Dracula, Beethoven, the pimp from True Romance, etc . . . it was a couple years after seeing all these movies that it just dawned on me that it was all the same guy. That’s when he became one of my favorite actors. I actually don’t value the ability to disappear completely into a role as much as I used to, but I still like Oldman, and appreciate what he’s capable of doing.
I watched that about 10 years ago and loved it. Then I watched it again about a month ago and realized that Gary Oldman was the only good thing about it. They were trying to make Citizen Beethoven and mostly failed. Probably would’ve failed completely had they not gotten Oldman as their lead.