Mank | David Fincher & Gary Oldman

[Boom]

Mank: Gary Oldman On Giving A Stripped-Down Performance In David Fincher’s Hollywood Tale – Exclusive Images

Gary Oldman is a transformative actor – someone who embodies roles through performance and delivery, but also revels in the possibilities of Hollywood make-up, from his Oscar-winning turn as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, to the lavish costuming of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. But for Mank – David Fincher’s upcoming film about Herman J. Mankiewicz, the writer of Citizen Kane – the beloved British actor stepped away from those trappings to deliver a much more stripped-down performance.

Fincher requested “Gary au naturel” for his tale about the making of a Golden Age masterpiece, which offered the actor a challenge. “I thought, ‘Oh, ****ing hell!’,” Oldman tells Empire in the November issue. “I can’t remember the last time I did that. I’ve always got something! I was thinking, ‘I don’t know about that.’ I don’t look anything like Mank. There’s a similarity with [Tom Burke as] Welles and Amanda Seyfried] kind of looks like [film star and Hearst’s lover] Marion Davies, and you’ve got this pale make-up on Charles Dance, so he resembles [William Randolph] Hearst. But I didn’t have anything I could anchor to. Then, once we started, I thought, ‘Yeah, Dave was right.’ No tricks. No nothing. Just: here it is. I’ve embraced it.”

As seen in Empire’s feature about the making of Mank – which takes David Fincher back to the Golden Age of Hollywood, with a screenplay written by his own late father, Jack Fincher – here’s an exclusive new image of Oldman and the director working together on set.

And here’s Oldman as Mank, with Tom Pelphrey as his younger brother Joseph and a junior aide on an MGM studio soundstage.

 

[Schlosser85]

Honestly, Oldman giving a "stripped-down" performance interests me too. He's a great actor (at least when he wants to be), but tends to be very........"big" (though he can go against that, like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), so I look forward to seeing what he does here.

 

[flickchick85]

Honestly, Oldman giving a "stripped-down" performance interests me too. He's a great actor (at least when he wants to be), but tends to be very........"big" (though he can go against that, like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), so I look forward to seeing what he does here.

Tinker Tailor is actually my favorite performance from him, so yeah, ditto.

 

[Boom]

Tinker Tailor should have been Oldman's Oscar.

Fight me.

 

[Kane52630]

One of those rare times where I disagree with Boom and flickchick... that movie was... exhausting.

 

[Boom]

One of those rare times where I disagree with Boom and flickchick... that movie was... exhausting.

 

[flickchick85]

One of those rare times where I disagree with Boom and flickchick... that movie was... exhausting.

 

[Kane52630]

Now that's a Gary Oldman performance.

 

[Doctor Jones]

I miss 90's Drexyl, Stansfield era Oldman playing bat**** insane villains.

 

[Boom]

If he had even ten minutes more screentime in True Romance I think he'd have gotten a nom for that. Ridiculous transformation.

I'd also argue to the death that he should've won Supporting Actor for JFK.

 

[Boom]

 

[Boom]

New images:

Spoiler

 

[Boom]

 

[Pennywise]

 

[Boom]

 

[Gothamsknight]

I'm so ready for this.

 

[Detective Conan]

I’m so psyched for this!!

 

[kvz5]

This trailer is... *chef’s kiss*

 

[Boom]

Another one!

 

[flickchick85]

Glorious!

 

[Kane52630]

Shout out to Netflix and David Fincher to put out a trailer that's actually in 4K for once.

 

[Gothamsknight]

I can already smell the oscars.

 

[Boom]

Anthony Hopkins vs Gary Oldman for Best Actor.

I think Fincher has Best Director all sewn up.

 

[Web-Head]

I'm just excited about the fact that we're finally getting a new David Fincher movie

 

[KaijuDude1992]

This movie looks absolutely stunning and its still hard to believe that its been six years since Fincher directed a movie, but hopefully it ends up being worth it, especially since Mindhunter has been put on an indefinite hold.