Categories: Movie NewsTrailers

Chameleon actor Gary Oldman to give award-worthy performance in ‘DARKEST HOUR’

Gary Oldman stars as Winston Churchill in director Joe Wright’s DARKEST HOUR, a Focus Features release.

Preston Barta // Features Editor

I’ve been watching Gary Oldman light up the screen ever since I was a kid. No matter what role he played, his next was completely different. If you put his brutal Drexl Spivey from TRUE ROMANCE next to his Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg from THE FIFTH ELEMENT, you can hardly tell it’s the same dude. Oldman is a chameleon, plain and simple. And what’s difficult to believe more than recognizing him from role to role is how he’s never won an Oscar for one. He was nominated for his 2011 role in TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, a movie I didn’t much care for but greatly enjoyed his performance in.

Now, watch the below trailer for his upcoming biopic on Winston Churchill, titled DARKEST HOURS. Again, Oldman completely envelops the character. It also helps that the Joe Wright-directed movie looks good, too.

Official Synopsis:
A thrilling and inspiring true story begins on the eve of World War II as, within days of becoming Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill (Academy Award nominee Gary Oldman) must face one of his most turbulent and defining trials: exploring a negotiated peace treaty with Nazi Germany, or standing firm to fight for the ideals, liberty and freedom of a nation. As the unstoppable Nazi forces roll across Western Europe and the threat of invasion is imminent, and with an unprepared public, a skeptical King, and his own party plotting against him, Churchill must withstand his darkest hour, rally a nation, and attempt to change the course of world history.

Focus Features will release DARKEST HOUR in select cities on November 22, 2017.


Preston Barta

I have been working as a film journalist since 2010, dividing the first four years between radio broadcasting and entertainment writing in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. In 2014, I entered Fresh Fiction (FreshFiction.tv) as the features editor. The following year, I stepped into the film critic position at the Denton Record-Chronicle, a daily North Texas print publication. My time is dedicated to writing theatrical film reviews, at-home entertainment columns, and conducting interviews with on-screen talent and filmmakers, as well as hosting a podcast devoted to genre filmmaking (called My Bloody Podcast). I've been married for ten happy years, and I have one son who is all about dinosaurs just like his dad.

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