When reflecting upon Gary Oldman's extraordinary career, an array of eclectic performances come to mind - Sid Vicious, Joe Orton, Dracula, Lee Harvey Oswald. . . Dr Zachary Smith! Yes, Oldman is now taking on the role of the irascible and eccentric scientist made famous by Jonathon Harris in the cult television series, Lost In Space.

Debuting in 1965, Lost In Space was the brain-child of producer Irwin Allen. It chronicled the adventures of the Robinson family, who volunteer to be the first space pioneers. In an attempt to sabotage their flight, Dr Smith unwillingly becomes trapped along with the family as space ship is jettisoned off-course and they are rendered. . .lost in space.

When it came to casting the film version of the 1960's series, director Stephen Hopkins and screenwriter Akiva Goldman eagerly approached Oldman, the only actor they ever considered for the role of Smith. "I was 10 years old when the series was on," recalls Oldman, "and I watched it once or twice. I've never been a fan of science fiction comics, the Incredible Hulk or Superman, they never interested me. But I liked the script, and I met Akiva and Stephen and they pitched the concept. I liked the idea. I liked Stephen's vision of the movie. Also, I could do a movie that my kid could go and see. He's nine."

Oldman, who eerily projects Harris's TV persona in the movie, modestly acknowledges, "To be fair, the writing is the closest. They've taken liberties with the other characters, but Smith on the page very much captures the spirit of the original. I sort of tip my hat to Jonathon Harris a little bit, there's a little bit of him in it." Many members of the original cast make cameo appearances in the movie, but Harris declined as he felt so connected with the role of Dr Smith, he could only envision himself portraying that character. Oldman (doing an immaculate impersonation of Harris) retorts, "'You're playing my part. . .you bastard!' I hear he was a little miffed, but now I hear his 'miff' has warmed."

As an actor who, in many of his films, has only had to deal with dialogue and action sequences, Oldman now found that he was faced with the daunting prospect of more visual effects than any other in history. "With a film like this, it's a very weird commitment," he admits. "You always have faith in your director, but even more so with a movie like this because he's always telling you how wonderful it's going to look - one day. He'll say 'I know you can't see it, but it's going to look fantastic. There's a planet outside the window, and this whole place is going to be swarming with spiders, and they're going to look wonderful.'"

The actor concedes that his vast experience working on stage enabled him to take the special effects in his stride. "I can't speak for anyone that has not done theatre," he says, "but that's the discipline and training that prepares you. I'm making a very strange connection here but, in some ways, it prepares you for something like this. "You hope that within the course of six or seven weeks of rehearsals you have found the emotion, and the technique is to recreate it and find it every night. You hear your cue and you go on. You can't stand in the wings and go, 'I just can't go on yet because I'm not feeling it.' You're on. You have to find it.

"With this, there is no spaceship, there is no monster, it's all old-fashioned make-believe. But I've done a number of films that don't have any special effects, where I haven't had the person on the other end of the phone - it's the same thing." Even with all his years of training, Oldman did find one sequence in the movie to be "challenging." During an excursion to a phantom spacecraft, Dr Smith is bitten by a spider. Later in the story, when the space travellers are projected into the future by a time machine, they find that the scientist has transformed into a grotesque spider-man. "I never really got to interpret the role in the movement," confesses Oldman. "If you go in to ADR (Automatic Dialogue Replacement) and revoice Dr Smith, you've played the role, you've inhabited the costume and the mind so you go, 'I can revoice this because I've played the part.' With the Spider-Smith, I was on stilts in a black cloak with a blue face and I felt very silly. I didn't know what it was going to look like. You don't know who you are, you don't know what you're playing really because you're just looking at a drawing.

"This is a new technology that they are using. I think I'm first in saying that I'm the first 'virtual' actor. Now, I'm not talking about computer generated people walking on the Titanic for a helicopter shot. I mean, marrying the computer graphics with the actual face of the actor so that it becomes part of the performance. They feed a three dimensional head into the computer, but that's as much as I know. I have a video at home that still flashes '12:00'! I find it a little discontorting that film is becoming influenced by all this stuff."

For a person who was "never a fan of science fiction", Oldman has spent the last couple of years starring in two sci-fi movies, The Fifth Element and Lost In Space. The actor doesn't hesitate to speak honestly about the former. "Luc Besson (the director of The Fifth Element) was involved in the making of my own movie (Nil By Mouth) and so I knew the inevitable phone call would come. He said 'Would you be in my movie?' What are you going to do? I wanted to say, 'No, I don't want to be in it,' but I said, 'Sure. I'll be in it.' So I got involved with that out of an obligation." Was he sorry he obliged? Oldman laughs, "The Fifth Element is not my favourite film. You try wearing that hat!"

(Copyright: Film Review, 1998)

Think of a camp, screen villain and the chances are it will be one of Gary Oldman's recent creations.

The megalomaniac Zorg in Fifth Element, the sadistic prison governor in Murder In The First, the ruthless Ruskie in Air Force One and the voice of the evil Sir Ruber in last week's big movie release, The Magic Sword (aka Quest For Camelot). . .all are rather more memorable than the heroes they were pitted against.

This week he pops up again as the baddie - the scheming Dr Zachary Smith - opposite the likes of William Hurt, Matt Le Blanc and Mimi Rogers in the big screen remake of the popular 60s sci-fi series Lost In Space (PG).

Earth is fast running out of resources and the Robinson family are being sent as a kind of advance party to save mankind by colonising another planet.

But the dastardly Smith sabotages the mission, sending the Robinsons spinning through space to goodness knows where. Unluckily for him, though, he too finds himself trapped on board.

Oldman says he was familiar with the TV series from his own childhood, but it wasn't something he would rush home to see.

He admits his motives were rather more mercenary - to finance other projects rather closer to his heart, like the award - winning Nil By Mouth, which he recently directed.

That and the chance to appear in a film that his own children would want to watch.

"I've played a lot of very strange, weird, twisted characters and this was a very strange, weird, twisted character for the kids."

There are, he said, something like 8,000 special effects shots in Lost In Space - more than any other film yet made.

And they created their own challenges for the actors. Like reacting with computer - generated creatures that weren't there and, in some cases, hadn't even been created in the computer yet.

"You have to have such a great deal of faith in the director and then it's weird because he doesn't often know what it's going to look like. So you've got this situation where the director's saying to you, 'Here come the spiders and you have to look very scared', and he says, 'Don't worry, I know there's nothing there at the moment, but on the day they'll look very, very scary. But he doesn't even know what they're going to look like, because he's hearing from the special effects guys, and he's saying, 'Well I'm telling the actors that these spiders will look really scary. Are they going to look scary?'"

And then there's the tedium of hanging around waiting for special effects shots to be set up.

"You come in and you rehearse for half-an-hour at nine o'clock in the morning and you might not step in front of the camera until five in the afternoon," Oldman added.

"So you have to bring in good books or a computer, or whatever you do, and just sit it out."

Though the special effects are the obvious stars of the show, Oldman manages once again to steal most of the best lines, which he delivers with admirable clipped disdain.

Indeed, he admits that he wanted to have "a lot more fun" with the character, but director Stephen Hopkins "reined" him in.

Despite the obvious relish with which he performs such roles, Oldman sees them as a rather strange diversion from his intended career path.

"I've not really gone after cornering the market on dark, bad guy villains, whatever you want to call them," he said. "These roles have found me."

And he insists that he won't be playing any more villains for a while. Unless, of course, there's a sequel.

"This film knocked Titanic off the No 1 slot in the States and has opened at No 1 in every country it's been in and that very much ties in with a sequel - a second, a third. . .who knows. I wouldn't mind dusting off the old space-suit and coming out again as Zachary Smith."

(Copyright - The Nuneaton Evening Telegraph - 1998)