On Friday, Playboy’s double issue for July and August hits stands and in it there’s an interview with actor Gary Oldman, who stars in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which opens nationwide on July 11. You’ve probably already seen plenty of ads and clips for Dawn, but I’ve got a pretty good feeling that people are going to be talking about it a lot more now that the Oldman interview is already available on Playboy’s website (NSFW, naturally). In fact, people have been jumping all over some specific comments that Oldman made regarding the major missteps of actors like Mel Gibson and Alec Baldwin, who aren’t exactly the most popular guys at Hollywood parties these days.
The reason that people have been freaking out about this interview today is because Oldman apparently not only thinks we should forgive and forget with guys like Gibson and Baldwin, but we’re simply becoming way too politically correct for our own good. It wasn’t the main focus of the interview, but when you start dropping N- and F-bombs, people tend to take notice. The whole interview is bizarre and sprinkled with batshittery, but that’s what we’ve come to expect from a 56-year old who has been married four times and evidently cares way too much what his peers think about his work.
Oldman spent the first chunk of the interview dumping all over his own career, as he said that he “doesn’t like” himself in Sid & Nancy and his reaction to being asked about Fifth Element made me really sad. I can’t even imagine how many pieces my heart would shatter into if he said he hated True Romance. Fortunately, he eventually addressed it and said, “It’s a nice little turn.” I’ll take it! He basically called Chris Nolan’s Batman franchise a paycheck, but he’s at least pretending like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes isn’t. But after everything he said in the opening of this interview, I’ll assume that he’s being nice for the sake of a contract.
The real fun began when Oldman was asked his thoughts on the future of the world – he thinks we’re doomed – and he starting pointing fingers at where we’ve gone wrong.
OLDMAN: It’s like the old saying about mediocrity: The mediocre are always at their best. They never let you down. Reality TV to me is the museum of social decay. And what passes for music—it’s all on that plateau. Who’s the hero for young people today? Some idiot who can’t f*cking sing or write or who’s shaking her ass and twerking in front of 11-year-olds.
My only complaint is that there’s no video of him saying twerking. Eventually the interview got into Hollywood politics and politics in general, and that’s when Oldman was asked what he would do if he had “f*ck you money.” He talked about how he’d just move into a gated property and lock the gates, because just getting a film financed has become so difficult. He added, “I can understand why someone like Mel, for instance, would finance his own movies now, because it has all become so crazy.” And then the gates get blown off their hinges.
PLAYBOY: Mel Gibson?
OLDMAN: Yeah.
PLAYBOY: What do you think about what he’s gone through these past few years?
OLDMAN: [Fidgets in his seat] I just think political correctness is crap. That’s what I think about it. I think it’s like, take a f*cking joke. Get over it. I heard about a science teacher who was teaching that God made the earth and God made everything and that if you believe anything else you’re stupid. A Buddhist kid in the class got very upset about this, so the parents went in and are suing the school! The school is changing its curriculum! I thought, All right, go to the school and complain about it and then that’s the end of it. But they’re going to sue! No one can take a joke anymore.
I don’t know about Mel. He got drunk and said a few things, but we’ve all said those things. We’re all f*cking hypocrites. That’s what I think about it. The policeman who arrested him has never used the word n*gger or that f*cking Jew? I’m being brutally honest here. It’s the hypocrisy of it that drives me crazy. Or maybe I should strike that and say “the N word” and “the F word,” though there are two F words now.
PLAYBOY: The three-letter one?
OLDMAN: Alec calling someone an F-A-G in the street while he’s pissed off coming out of his building because they won’t leave him alone. I don’t blame him. So they persecute. Mel Gibson is in a town that’s run by Jews and he said the wrong thing because he’s actually bitten the hand that I guess has fed him—and doesn’t need to feed him anymore because he’s got enough dough. He’s like an outcast, a leper, you know? But some Jewish guy in his office somewhere hasn’t turned and said, “That f*cking kraut” or “F*ck those Germans,” whatever it is? We all hide and try to be so politically correct. That’s what gets me. It’s just the sheer hypocrisy of everyone, that we all stand on this thing going, “Isn’t that shocking?” [smiles wryly] All right. Shall I stop talking now? What else can we discuss?
PLAYBOY: What do you think of the pope?
OLDMAN: Oh, f*ck the pope! [laughs and puts head in hands] So this interview has gone very badly. You have to edit and cut half of what I’ve said, because it’s going to make me sound like a bigot.
From there, Oldman offered his thoughts on politics, and they were surprisingly tamer than his opinions on the way people judge specific terms of hate. Either way, it’s bound to have people talking about and judging Oldman, and his PR reps’ phones are already ringing.