Harry Potter star walks back criticism after branding beloved performance “mediocre”
Warner Bros. PicturesOne of the more beloved actors from the Harry Potter franchise took some time to walk back his statements in which he disparaged his performance.
During an interview with Happy Sad Confused last year, Gary Oldman, who played Sirius Black, referred to his performance in the Harry Potter movies as “mediocre,” adding “Maybe if I had read the books like Alan [Rickman], if I had got ahead of the curve, if I had known what’s coming, I honestly think I would have played it differently.”
However, the actor seems to feel differently about those comments these days as he explained to a Cannes press conference room, “What I meant by that is, as any artist or any actor or painter, you are always hypercritical of your own work. If you’re not, and you’re satisfied with what you’re doing, that would be death to me. If I watched a performance of myself and thought, ‘My God, I’m fantastic in this,’ that would be a sad day.”
Oldman also noted that he never meant to “disparage anyone out there who are fans of Harry Potter and the films and the character who I think is much beloved.”
The actor continued, “There was such secrecy that was shrouded around the novels, they were under lock and key. And had I known from the very beginning, if I had read the five books and I had seen the arc of the character, I might have approached it differently. I may have looked at it differently and painted in a different color.
“So when I started Harry Potter all I had was the book, the Prisoner of Azkaban, and that one representation of that man. One book in the library of Sirius Black. And that’s kind of what I meant by it. It’s not me looking at the movie and saying it’s a terrible film or I’m terrible, I just wish it had been under different circumstances. That’s what I meant, not to be rude to any of the people out there who like that film.”
Oldman was only technically in four of the seven Harry Potter films as his character was killed by Bellatrix Lestrange in Order of the Phoenix.
Despite the books being kept from actors like Oldman, Rickman detailed how author J. K. Rowling allowed him to have glimpses into Severus Snape‘s backstory and reading the final Harry Potter book in his diary.
“I have finished reading the last Harry Potter book,” Rickman wrote. “Snape dies heroically, Potter describes him to his children as one of the bravest men he ever knew and calls his son Albus Severus.
“This was a genuine rite of passage. One small piece of information from Jo Rowling seven years ago – Snape loved Lily – gave me a cliff edge to hang on to.”
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