Gary Oldman Says He Was ‘Typecast’ as the ‘Poster Boy for Rent-a-Villain,’ Which Was ‘Fun for a While’ But Eventually ‘Got a Little Old’: ‘I Just Put a Stop to it’

Gary Oldman got tired of playing the villain.

While discussing his performance as Dr. Zachary Smith in “Lost in Space” during a recent episode of Variety‘s “Know Their Lines,” Oldman said there was a point in his career where he was the go-to for casting directors who needed a bad guy.

“I got sort of typecast for a while,” Oldman said. “I became kind of like the poster boy for the ‘rent-a-villain.’ Sort of, ‘Oh, we need a villain and we’ll get Gary.’ I don’t know how that happened, but it happened. And it was fun for a while, but eventually, I just put a stop to it. It got a little old. But they are fun to play.”

Oldman went on to compare the character of Dr. Zachary Smith to another one of his iconic villain roles, Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg from “The Fifth Element.”

“This particularly, like ‘The Fifth Element,’ much like ‘Lost in Space,’ they’re comic villains,” he explained. “[‘Lost in Space’] was fun, great cast. I thought the story, it was a lot to put in. It was a lot of movie in two hours. But [Dr. Zachary Smith] was fun to play because it’s a villain with a tongue in the cheek or a little twinkle in the eye.”

One of Oldman’s first major switches from villain to hero was when he joined Christopher Nolan’s “Batman” trilogy as Commissioner Gordon. David S. Goyer, who wrote “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” for Nolan, recently recalled on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast that he was “very surprised” to hear Oldman had landed the role, given his villain status.

“Now that I’m a more experienced filmmaker, I realized that it’s really exciting to cast against type,” Goyer said. “It’s exciting for filmmakers, and it’s also exciting for the actors.”