News

Gary Oldman keen to direct another movie

Gary Oldman made his first and only movie, Nil By Mouth, in 1997.

Gary Oldman would like to direct another feature from a screenplay he wrote 11 years ago.

The Oscar-winning actor, who made his directorial debut with 1997’s Nil By Mouth, revealed on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that he has been trying to get his second feature off the ground.

“Not for want of trying. Over the years, there’s (been) quite a few scripts and there’s one particular I’d like to do but it’s 11 years now since I first wrote it,” he shared. “I had a piece that was not like Nil By Mouth but I think with the same honesty and the same intensity.”

Oldman explained that he used a lot of his own money to make Nil By Mouth, which he also wrote, but he would have to find the funding for his second feature elsewhere.

“I tried to get other things made but it’s a very tough game, you’ve got to go to the people with money and they make casting suggestions that are absolutely ludicrous,” he lamented. “That’s the sort of thing you’re always dealing with.”

The Harry Potter star noted that he would lose full creative control over his vision by getting funding from others.

“I used a lot of my own money when I made Nil By Mouth and I won’t ever (do it again)… it’s the cardinal rule, don’t ever do it,” he said. “(But) it’s a very liberating way (of making a film), I don’t have (producer) Harvey Weinstein at the end of it who wants to recut it and rewrite a scene and reshoot and all the rest of it.”

He added, “There could be a lot of people at the table and it really can be too many cooks in the kitchen.”

Weinstein, who is currently in prison for a series of sexual offences, was nicknamed “Harvey Scissorhands” in the industry because he was notorious for heavily editing movies produced by his company.

© Cover Media