Gary Oldman Bets On HBO's Harry Potter Show To Be 'More Satisfying' Than The Iconic Film Series

Gary Oldman has great hopes pinned on HBO's upcoming Harry Potter series. The Osar-winning actor, who essayed Sirius Black in the Harry Potter movies, told Entertainment Weekly that he believes the show will click more favourably with audiences than the movies did. Oldman played Black in four movies.

“We had to cut a lot [for the ‘Harry Potter’ movies], and still we could only get the films down to, like, three hours,” Oldman insisted, adding that “a lot of character detail was sacrificed” in the process. “I believe [the HBO series is] gonna do it pretty much word-for-word, which I think, as a viewer, would be more satisfying.”

Oldman admitted, though, that he is “proud” and “grateful” to have involved in the Harry Potter films “because it is such a phenomenon, the like of which I don’t think you’re ever gonna see again.”

“When you think of that initial cast, someone in the story who doesn’t get a lot of credit anymore is [director] Chris Columbus, who set the world up and cast it,” he said. “We were extraordinarily lucky to have those people come back again, and again, and again, and literally grow into those roles.”

Gary Oldman On Harry Potter Movies

Oldman made his debut as Sirius Black in the 2004 film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. He would later reprise the role in its 2005 follow-up, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, as well as 2007’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and 2011’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2.

Oldman had earlier said that his performance as Sirius Black in the movies was “mediocre,” but he later clarified that 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,” he told Variety in 2024. “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.