Lost In Space interviews from Empire and SFX magazines
In a case of interviewee chalk-and-cheese interchange syndrome, nest up is the arch ham himself, Gary Oldman. After just a few seconds with Oldman, you wonder whether he's being interviewed about the same movie. The slight, friendly actor has a sly gleam in his eye, and after the gushings of "great scripts" we've been enduring until now, it's almost a relief when he admits that he ended up as the main villain on Lost In Space because, "It was the only role I was being offered. . .It was the only script that was half decent. The quality of what's out there is shocking!"
So why does he keep getting offered the villainous roles?
"Perhaps it has something to do with my cultural heritage. I mean, who are culture's heroes? Characters like Scrooge! The British arch-villain seems popular in America. Americans even have a day to celebrate kicking us out."
At least playing Dr Smith didn't require Oldman to undergo some of the extreme make-up and costume demands previous villainous roles in films like The Fifth Element and Bram Stoker's Dracula did.
"I mean, I don't have to have prosthetics. I'm in a costume with my own hair. I don't have to deal with all the fireworks that I normally get asked to do: accents, make-up, wigs. I just throw those clothes on and go to the set. It didn't require hours of make-up."
There was another reason why Oldman was happy to take the part of Dr Smith, though - and it had nothing to do with the dialogue, the exotic locations (as if) or even the pay (well. . .). At least, here was a film he could take his children to see.
"Yes. That was the clincher. Really. My oldest is none. He's going to see the movie next week. He's never been able to see anything I've done. You get in a situation where you spend a great deal of your time working away. You do this job. . .Well, he sort of knows what I do. I'm an actor. . .But he's not chomping at the bit to become an actor. He's not interested in it. I go away for five or six months, or whatever, and you can't show them the result. They wonder, 'What's this thing that's taken you away?' They ask and you go, 'I can't show it to you.' "At the time Dracula came out, he was too young and it was too violent. I wouldn't show him Air Force One. It's nice to know next week I'll take him out, buy him popcorn, and show him the movie. And I've got these action figures (from Lost In Space) and one of them's me! My youngest one's seven months and he's teething so I gave him my action figure and he chewed my head off!"
Oldman's very on the level about the acting demands of the role; not for him deep soul searching or spending months as a Doctor for method-acting-style research. . .
"He's the only character in the film," Oldman says "who captures the spirit of the original. They've gone many different directions with the other characters. With Smith, it's a part that's made up of moments. He's not part of the family, he's not part of the crew. He sort of stands back, and throws a cat among the pigeons! He's interested in looking at the robots and going, 'My God, a Rambler-Crane.' Then he turns and goes (to the Robinson's robot), 'Well, aren't we the poor cousin!' There's a whole handful of great lines in the movie."
Any quirks he borrows from the original Smith actor, Jonathon Harris?
"No. They wouldn't really let me. The voice, a little bit. I sort of tipped my hat to him. . . He must be the first queen in space!"
Laughter erupts all round, and not the usual tittering you tend to hear at these events. Oldman is clearly the headline act today. . .
"My mannerisms were less extravagant. Stephen (Hopkins, Lost In Space director)wanted my portrayal more sinister. He pushed me in that direction. At the end of the movie, I come running in going, 'We're doomed! We're doomed. . .' And I mean that we're doomed. With Jonathon Harris. . .I mean, he went. . ." Oldman becomes florid "'We're doomed, we're doomed' like lunch didn't arrive on time."
Harris was purportedly offered the role of the Sedition Commander, but turned it down as he insisted on playing Smith.
"He's too old!" Oldman retorts with not a hint of delicacy. "I didn't watch a lot of the old series again, but I still remember him saying, 'Oh, William' from when I was ten years old. I remember that voice, 'You bumbling boob!', and the way he used to talk. Let's face it, he was after Will! It was a bit questionable, their relationship!"
How did Dr Smith compare with The Fifth Element?
"Well, it was certainly a relief not to wear that hat!" Oldman jokes. "That costume! Fifth Element. . .What a terrific film that is. . ."
Laughter, erm, doesn't erupt. It trickles out nervously as we try to figure out whether he's being sarcastic or not. But whatever he really thought of The Fifth Element, Oldman seems resigned - and not too worried about it either - to the fact that playing the villain as much as he does simply helps pay the bills.
"It's to do with what you're being offered," he admits pragmatically. "I've been offered four villains this week. . ."
He pauses, thinking for a moment before mentioning two of his more 'serious' roles. "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Prick Up Your Ears - those are just wonderful writing. You guys. . ." he points at the assembled journos ". . .you go and see movies. How many times do you go 'What a dumb script!'?"
We nod in agreement.
"Writing's where it starts. I read scripts week after week. I read something the other day and I go to page three. . ." He mimics tossing the draft, ". . .that's how terrible it was."
So, has he seen Lost In Space yet, and does he like it?
"Yes." there's a long pause. "Did you?" he asks.
Answers don't come immediately. Yes and nos. no consensus.
"What grey area do you have?" Oldman asks, adding somewhat mischievously, "I'm just interested."
Now the tables are turned. We ahem a bit. Someone says he liked the TV show and was jarred by the film. More reporters confess they didn't know who the movie is aimed at.
"That's the area Stephen was concerned with," Oldman admits. "You want the adults and you want to appeal to the kids. It's a hard one to judge. If we go to a sequel, there's even talk of Smith's identity being swapped with Professor Robinson's. I get to play the good guy after all!"
Oldman as Prof Robinson? You wonder what William Hurt would make of that. What kind of example would that be for the kids?
Taken from the article 'Danger! Danger!' in SFX Magazine.
(Copyright: SFX Magazine 1998)
"Sometimes I wish there was some other people who took it as seriously as I do," Hurt continues sternly.
Gary Oldman is one who does, but he's considerably more relaxed when he arrives. Maybe he got some chicken. He was the first of the cast to sign on and, as he's quick to say, family films don't exactly clog up his CV.
"It's certainly one that my kid can see and that was the big motivation for it. He's coming here next week and it's going to be great. I can take him up to the Cineramadome and buy him his popcorn. It's the first film that dad's done that he can actually sit and see. He's nine, so I can't take him to see Air Force One. When he was younger I was doing things like J.F.K and True Romance."
Oldman's character hasn't strayed too far from its 60s incarnation so it was up to him to provide the camp comedy that keeps the film from becoming too cloying.
"I'm just glad that they kept the essence of the original. I think that they've take the other roles and played with them but I think that Dr Smith retains something of the original spirit. It was all on the page. They kept a couple of the old sayings, 'We're doomed, we're doomed.'"
Of course this isn't the first time he's played the villain of the piece. Apart from Air Force One, didn't we just see him as a futuristic bad guy in The Fifth Element?
"Yeah, at the time, with the exception of a few bad scripts, this was the only role on offer to me," says Oldman honestly.
So did he prefer playing Dr Smith to prancing around in Luc Besson's fantasy?
"Well, I didn't have to wear that silly thing on my head."
Having taken a year and a half out to make Nil By Mouth, Oldman is now planning to spend more time in front of the camera. But he insists there will be no more villains for a while.
"There's a ceiling to these bad guys, so I've just put the lid on it and said, 'No more'. I can't do it anymore, I'm not interested. The passion for acting was slipping away because the trouble is that you have to find a good role and I'm out there looking."
Hollywood isn't helping him out much.
"You know, I've been offered four villains this week," he sighs. "That surely reflects the lack of imagination of the people out there who are offering the roles."
Taken from the article 'Nuclear Family' in Empire Magazine.
(Copyright: Empire Magazine, 1998)