Black magic
By Ian Nathan
A shadow hangs over the new Harry Potter, but Gary Oldman isn't worried about the little ones getting cold

There’s a lot to be said for the dark side of the Force. The splash and sparkle of Star Wars is one thing, but your true connoisseur will always opt for The Empire Strikes Back, the one in which it got really dark, the one that mattered. It’s one of those strange laws of movie making. Taking a franchise into the shadows, closer to the edge, paradoxically lends your multimillion-dollar series a new lease of life. Word has it that that is exactly where Harry Potter is heading in episode three. After all, J. K. Rowling, Britain’s richest lady, has already marked out the territory: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, her third book-based journey through this wildly popular magical other-verse, is where the Devil really comes to tea.

“I think the books get darker as Harry gets older,” muses Gary Oldman, his bony torso a canvas of arcane tattoos, his long hair thick and greasy, a thin beard spread across his chin like a bruise. “There is a younger audience that is ultimately going to be left behind. I mean we’ve had a big discussion about my blood; the amount you can show. A werewolf attacks me . . . Any way you look at it, that is going to be scary.”

Before all the wee ones get up in arms and stage protests outside multiplexes nationwide about their beloved boywizard being hijacked for an adult audience, we are still talking about a Harry Potter film. Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint all return as the trio of intrepid pupils, up to their school-ties in another cauldron of murky secrecy and wizardly pranks at Hogwarts.

Robbie Coltrane is back as the bumbling giant Hagrid. There’s more Quidditch, and the addition of Honeyduke’s sweetshop selling such delectations as Toothflossing Stringmints and Pepper Imps (“Breathe fire on your friends!”).

It’s just that this time around there is also a lurking tension like never before. Sirius Black (Oldman), the prisoner of the title, has escaped and is heading straight for Harry: motive, as of yet, foggy. He’s being tracked by a pack of Dementors, cloaked spectres untroubled by gravity and bearing more than a passing resemblance to Tolkien’s Ringwraiths. David Thewlis arrives as a new teacher with a suspicious aversion to the moon. And, most significantly, there’s also a new director on board, the startling and encouraging choice of Alfonso Cuarón, the sprightly Mexican whose moody and interesting résumé most recently included the rites-of-passage drama Y Tu Mamá También. He immediately cottoned on to an even more terrifying aspect: this was a story about a group of kids entering their “difficult” phase.

“It is psychologically a different moment,” he says, “Harry is 13 and has to reconcile himself to the fact that he is Harry and not somebody else. The material is much darker because of this.”

Yes, indeed, strange new shadows have fallen across the opulent halls of Hogwarts. With the series teetering riskily on formula, the news is thrilling: an unusual and skilled director, a recasting of the much-loved staples into a more layered guise, and a new cast member best known for playing Dracula, Lee Harvey Oswald and the cop from Léon — you know, that pyscho popping his own variety of Pepper Imps and stringing out like he’s been plugged into the mains.

With another choke of his guttural laughter, Gary Oldman refuses to reveal what his tattoos mean. We’re sitting in a sun-filled antechamber to the sprawling, wonderful Potter sets at Leavesden Studios, and he’s in fine spirits, despite looking close to death.

“It’s Alfonso’s idea,” he smiles. “They have a meaning, but I can’t tell you.”

The point is that Sirius Black has been locked away for years in the prison of the title, a foul, evil place that leaves a wizard scarred body and soul. Oldman, naturally a skinny rake, had to appear malnourished, suspicious, but still driven to reach Harry. It was a complex notion to pull off.

“We tried all variations,” the actor explains of the trial-and-error process. “Whether over the years I had gone grey. We tried a wig that was shorn. There was one image that looked almost like the victims of the concentration camps. That was a bit distracting. We ended up with the long hair; it was the one that just worked.”

You might have been wondering what had become of Oldman, whose usually unstoppable flow of films seems to have dried up of late. It’s not that he was imprisoned in the Hollywood equivalent of the wizard clink Azkaban, he just hasn’t been in the mood. For two whole years.

“This is the first time I’ve been away for ages,” he admits happily. “I don’t want to travel. I’m 45 now. I’d rather leave it for younger men. But this . . . Well, I needed the work, for one thing; it was nice to earn some money. The material was good, the director was interesting and it was nice to be in a movie that my kids could see for once.”

The thing about Oldman’s dry, New Cross tones, unsullied by more than a decade in LA, is they are so damnably honest. He can afford to pick and choose his roles, and he makes it clear that Cuarón was the major draw.

“He is such an interesting choice for the franchise. It wasn’t that cookie-cutter way of turning out films, you know, ‘let’s cash in and get Joe Bloggs to direct it.’ I see it as an Alfonso Cuarón movie, it’s not Harry Potter 3.”

Add to that the fact that he would be playing Rowling’s most complex and ambiguous character, a massive step up from the straightforward blackguards of the first two books/films. Black has deep, obscure connections with Harry’s past and possesses vital knowledge that throws light on the gathering backstory of the young, bespectacled hero’s destiny.

Meanwhile, the good and bad element of it, for those 27 people who still haven’t read the books, is still up for grabs. “You play the subtext that’s already there,” Oldman explains of his approach to Black. “I’ve not embellished it with a whole lot of psychology. I appear, you think that I’m the bad guy and through the course of the scene you realise: ‘Oh, he’s not that.’ It’s not that sophisticated . . . It’s not All the President’s Men, it’s Harry Potter.”

Which still means that whatever you do with the role, and the film, you’re running the gauntlet of millions of Potter maniacs, the kind who are driven to queue at midnight for the arrival of book five and who guard its world with furious dedication. Even as talented an actor as Gary Oldman is sure to nark some diminutive defenders of the faith.“

I met a kid who came to the set and was looking me up and down,” he admits, punctuating his observation with another stab of incredulous laughter. “He said: ‘I never expected him to look like that. I thought you’d look paler, your hair is a bit long.’ I was obviously a huge disappointment!”

It’s a gamble that Cuarón is taking on a much larger scale, trying to conjure that miracle cure for sequels: more of the same but different. Whatever your take on the first Harry Potter adventures, directed by the more stately, studio-honed Chris Columbus (who now produces), they certainly made the money. Harry’s most fantastical spell to date seems to be summoning millions of dollars wherever he goes. Going darker, edgier, with all its hungry malevolent sorcery, might just upset the sunnier commercial magic.

“I will only serve the material from my standpoint,” demands Cuarón. “Chris Columbus directed the two previous movies and we are two different directors. Also, the tone of the books is changing. That’s the great thing about this franchise; it evolves, there is a natural progression.”

Not that he wasn’t wary of stepping up from the looser, low-budget realms he was used to working in to take charge of this $130 million blockbuster. “There was the ego aspect of it — how could I put myself into the next episode of a franchise? I was won over by the material, I really liked it.”

His policy has been direct and simple: serve this material, not yourself. And paradoxically the massive, micro-managed enterprise has been a liberating experience. He has been enthralled by the possibilities of the special effects, while keeping them at arm’s length (“They only serve the story,” he insists), shooting a Quidditch sequence in a downpour of Kurosawan rain. Determined it is not a “fantasy movie”, but one grounded in real emotions, real concerns, he has focused on the trio at its heart. You’ll notice the modern sheen he has allowed them, dressing the heroes in jeans and sweatshirts as much as he can, nudging the characters into self-awareness.

“It is a perfect moment to work with them on these movies,” he delights. “I know they are prepped and are starting to take themselves seriously as actors.”

All three, Cuarón explains, have drawn upon their own swirling teenage emotions to fuel the filmic turmoil of Harry, Hermione and Ron. “There is a lot of stuff they can’t control,” he says, “and it allows you to mould it and make the decision to just let it happen.”

All three of those old hands, now pushing a venerable 15, give Cuarón their full approval, gushing about how vibrant he has been on set, how much fun, how he has opened up the characters to reveal something new to them.

“Harry is becoming a teenager,” says Radcliffe, “and that brings so many things with it. It is the biggest leap of the whole series. He’s got angst and is completely unsure of himself. He’s starting to notice girls, which brings a huge amount of other stuff into it. Alfonso has helped with that.”

Which probably amounts to discussions about character rather than helpful introductions, but it all points towards an innate maturation within the movies, something which, for all the more childish charms of Philosopher’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets, was as unavoidable as puberty. Rowling’s books have been as much about growing up as anything else.

There was one change, however, that came unbidden and unwelcome. The death of Richard Harris required a new actor to play the headmaster Professor Dumbeldore: Michael Gambon, who took to heart the nature of Harris’s performances, and is dipping his actorly forelock in honour of his old friend.

“I can’t think of anyone better,” considers Radcliffe. “On his first day, he came out with the costume, and the way he walked and talked in an Irish accent was a tribute to Richard.”

The news is good for Harry Potter; sensible heads seem to be guiding it forward with dynamic choices and a willingness to adapt. Yet the established tracery of Hogwarts’ charms is unmistakable, and Rowling’s wistful storytelling remains very much intact; more of the same but different. Filming on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the massive fourth tome, is already underway, this time with the British director Mike Newell in charge. The kids are back, as is Mr Oldman, who, in a renewed burst of activity, signed on for two films. He’s even keen to see things through to the projected seventh film, but Rowling may have beaten him to the punch.

“Yeah, it’s not good for me,” he laughs on an unhealthy turn of events headed Sirius Black’s way in part five. “I thought: ‘Ooh, I could earn a few quid here with five, six and seven.’ You know, maybe there is a twist in six. We’ll see.”

Hey, a burst of carbonite didn’t do Han Solo any harm.

With thanks to The Times