Gary Oldman is one of those actors who seems to have done it all. From portraying controversial punk rocker Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy to leading an entire country in turmoil in Darkest Hour, Oldman is a reliable performer who can get into any character and add the gravitas necessary to make the story more compelling. According to his latest claims, he could have also played a beloved scissor-wielding humanoid in a unique fantasy tale that captivated audiences in 1990. Yep, that’s right: Gary Oldman was on the list of early contenders to play Edward Scissorhands, but decided against it because he just didn’t “get it.”
Oldman recently spoke to The Hollywood Reporter while promoting the upcoming fifth season of the Apple TV+ spy thriller Slow Horses, which sees Oldman playing yet another memorable role while delivering a performance that has earned him an Emmy nomination. While recalling some of the highlights of his career, he was asked about Edward Scissorhands, and this was his answer:
“Well, that’s going back a few years. It would have been in the late ’80s. I was on Tim Burton’s list for the role of Edward Scissorhands. It was a small list. My agent thought I had a really good chance of getting it. They said to me, ‘Read the script.’ They sent the script over, and I basically said, ‘I don’t get it.’
“You have to remember at this point in time you’re not looking at Tim Burton’s whole body of work. I read this quirky, strange little script, and I didn’t get it. The Avon lady and the kid with the scissor hands. It just didn’t register with me. I said to the agent, ‘I just don’t understand this. It’s not my cup of tea.’
“So I did not meet Tim Burton. Then Scissorhands came out, and I went to the cinema to watch it. With that opening shot — all those brightly colored houses, and then the camera pans up to the castle-like thing on the hill — within two minutes I went, ‘I get it!'”
Trying to Get Away From Being Typecast
Although he eventually became one of Hollywood’s most highly regarded actors, Oldman also remembers that dealing with being boxed into certain roles. “There was certainly a time where I felt that I was being sort of typecast. I was a sort of ‘rent-a-villain,'” Oldman said as he recalled making the decision to step aside for some time until more grounded roles arrived. “I made a conscious decision that I can’t do this anymore. I put myself out of work to wait for something to come along that was far away from the sort of villainous world I was in.”
Oldman eventually achieved what he was looking for, starring in the role that finally earned him an Academy Award: In Darkest Hour, he played Winston Churchill under heavy prosthetics, but still captivated the entire industry with a realistic performance. “I was lucky to be able to do the franchise bit — to be part of the Harry Potter series, and then the Batman series,” he reflected. “That pedigree, that profile, allows you to do things like Tinker Tailor [Soldier Spy]. One feeds the other, right?”
