Gary Leonard Oldman is a British actor, filmmaker, musician and author who has performed in theatre, film and television.Oldman began acting on stage in 1979, and gained his first starring film role in Meantime (1983). He continued to lead an award-winning theatre career, during which he performed at London’s Royal Court and was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, with credits including The Massacre at Paris (1980), Entertaining Mr Sloane (1983), Saved (1983), The Country Wife (1987) and Hamlet (1987). Oldman’s portrayals the titular Rosencrantz in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990) established him as a screen actor, with his reading of Orton bringing a BAFTA Award nomination. Identified in the late 1980s with the “Brit Pack”, he was described by critic Roger Ebert as “the best young British actor around”. Oldman increasingly starred as offshore characters, playing a gangster in State of Grace (1990), Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK (1991), and Count Dracula in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), which earned him the Saturn Award for Best Actor.Oldman portrayed in Léon: The Professional (1994), has been ranked as one of cinema’s greatest villains. He meanwhile gave a critically acclaimed reading of Ludwig van Beethoven in Immortal Beloved (1994). In the 21st century, Oldman is known for his roles as Sirius Black in the Harry Potter series (where first saw him and knew him); Lord Shen in Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011); George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), which brought Academy and BAFTA Award nominations for Best Actor.
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