Gary Oldman admits Harry Potter scene was ‘the hardest thing he’s ever had to to’

Gary Oldman has said a scene he did in one of the Harry Potter movies was 'the most difficult thing' he ever had to do in his career.

For a lot of viewers, their first time seeing the actor was in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, where he played Harry's godfather Sirius Black.

Oldman went on to appear in Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix, and the second Deathly Hallows movie in the Harry Potter series.

Recently, he said his roles in the Harry Potter films and Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy 'saved me'.

He was on The Drew Barrymore Show and said that he was going through a time when he felt his career slowing down while going through a divorce.

Dominik Bindl/Getty Images

Oldman said 'thank god' for the Harry Potter and Batman movies he did as they let him do 'the least amount of work for the most amount of money and then be home with the kids'.

Now he's spoken more about his performance in the Harry Potter films and told the Happy Sad Confused podcast that he'd have played Sirius Black differently if he'd read the books beforehand.

Being quite tough on his own performance and giving a verdict that most Potter fans would disagree with, Oldman said his work on the movies was 'mediocre'.

That's a rather harsh review of himself, though the actor said if he had another go he'd have read the books beforehand as Alan Rickman did.

If he had read them then perhaps his death in the fifth movie wouldn't have come as such a surprise, as Oldman joked that he was 'still upset' at Sirius being killed off.

Warner Bros.

There was also one moment on Prisoner of Azkaban which he said was 'the most difficult thing I ever had to do' on the set of a movie.

In the third Harry Potter film, there's a scene where the dementors attack Sirius and Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) by the side of a lake near Hogwarts, and Oldman said lying by that lake was really difficult.

"It took forever, it was slow, and we'd been on a scene for a week," the 65-year-old explained.

"I had to just lie there for a week. Day in, day out, doing nothing. 'I think my kidneys are getting a bit cold' and they put a little hot water bottle under you...

"Then day three, you go, 'My neck is killing me,' and they'd put a little pillow underneath it.

"The hardest thing I had to do was lie next to a frozen lake."

Topics: Celebrity, TV and Film, Harry Potter

Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

@MrJoeHarker