Oldman appeared only briefly in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, while Order of the Phoenix brought Sirius back more prominently before his fatal confrontation at the Ministry of Magic.
He later made another brief appearance in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.
For Oldman, the compressed arc appears to have left some unfinished business. Sirius entered the films as one of the franchise’s most mysterious characters, quickly became one of Harry’s closest remaining links to his parents and then, as the actor put it, went through the veil.
Efficient storytelling, perhaps. Not especially generous employment for Gary Oldman.
The HBO series could give Sirius a much bigger role
The planned Harry Potter television adaptation offers an obvious opportunity to handle characters such as Sirius differently. A long-form series has substantially more room than eight feature films to preserve material that was condensed or removed from the original adaptations.
Oldman, however, does not expect that extra screen time to belong to him.
“I would bet my money that they will get a whole new cast of people,” he said.
He did leave himself one possible route back into the wizarding world.
“Maybe in a few years, I could do Dumbledore.”
The comment was clearly speculative rather than an indication that Oldman is involved in the new adaptation. His suggestion would also place him in a very different corner of Hogwarts: from Harry’s rebellious godfather to the school’s famously composed headmaster.
Oldman has also criticised his own Sirius performance
Wanting more time as Sirius does not mean Oldman is entirely satisfied with the time he already had.
During an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the actor described his own work in the Harry Potter films as “mediocre” and suggested that knowing the full trajectory of the character might have changed his performance.
“Maybe if I had read the books like Alan [Rickman], if I had got ahead of the curve, if I had known what’s coming, I honestly think I would have played it differently,” Oldman said.
Alan Rickman, who played Severus Snape throughout the series, famously approached the character with knowledge of information that would only become important much later in the story.
Oldman’s assessment is harsher than that of many viewers. Sirius became one of his most recognisable mainstream roles and helped introduce the actor — already acclaimed for films including Sid and Nancy and JFK — to another generation of audiences.
Harry Potter arrived when Oldman needed the work
Whatever his reservations about the performance or the size of the role, Oldman has repeatedly credited Harry Potter with helping him through a difficult period in his career and personal life.
He has said that playing Sirius, alongside his role as James “Jim” Gordon in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, gave him stable, high-profile work at a point when other opportunities had become harder to accommodate.
“At 42 years old, I woke up divorced and I had custody of [my] boys,” Oldman recalled. “That, in itself, was… that was hard because there was a shift in the industry where a lot of productions were being [filmed in] Hungary, Budapest, Prague, Australia, you know, all of these places. So, I turned down a lot of work.”
The Harry Potter and Batman films allowed him to take major franchise roles while navigating those responsibilities, and both characters became enduring parts of his career.
A new Sirius will get another chance
The television remake now creates an unusual comparison point. Whoever inherits Sirius Black will be playing a character audiences already associate closely with Oldman, but potentially with far more material available to develop him.
That could mean more of Sirius’s relationship with Harry, more of his complicated history with the Black family and more space for the character before the events at the Ministry bring his story to its abrupt end.
Oldman does not appear to be campaigning for another turn in the role. His complaint is simpler: he liked Sirius, and there was not enough Sirius.
The next adaptation, at least, has considerably less excuse for rushing him toward the veil.
