Gary Oldman Clarifies 'Harry Potter' Comments After Saying His Sirius Black Performance Was 'Mediocre'

Gary Oldman is clarifying the previous comments he made about his performance in the Harry Potter franchise.

The Oscar-winning actor played Sirius Black in the beloved films, but he has said that he thinks his “work is mediocre in it.”

While appearing at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival to promote his movie Parthenope, Gary clarified the comments he made back in December 2023.

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Gary said he didn’t mean to “disparage anyone out there who are fans of ‘Harry Potter’ and the films and the character who I think is much beloved.”

“What I meant by that is, as any artist or any actor or painter, you are always hypercritical of your own work. If you’re not, and you’re satisfied with what you’re doing, that would be death to me. If I watched a performance of myself and thought, ‘My God, I’m fantastic in this,’ that would be a sad day,” Gary continued (via Variety).

He added, “There was such secrecy that was shrouded around the novels, they were under lock and key. And had I known from the very beginning, if I had read the five books and I had seen the arc of the character, I might have approached it differently. I may have looked at it differently and painted in a different color. So when I started ‘Harry Potter,’ all I had was the book, ‘The Prisoner of Azkaban,’ and that one representation of that man. One book in the library of Sirius Black. And that’s kind of what I meant by it. It’s not me looking at the movie and saying it’s a terrible film or I’m terrible, I just wish it had been under different circumstances. That’s what I meant, not to be rude to any of the people out there who like that film.”

Browse through the gallery for photos of Gary Oldman at the Cannes Film Festival…