Gary Oldman, Star of Harry Potter and Dark Knight Series, Reveals He’s Retiring From Acting

Gary Oldman is ready for some rest and relaxation. The Dark Knight alumnus says he’s fine with retiring after his latest project runs its course, citing interests outside of the industry he’d like to dedicate his time to. Oldman currently stars in AppleTV+’s Slow Horses, a spy thriller that will soon debut its second season. Based on a series of novels by Mick Herron, Slow Horses has already been renewed for third and fourth seasons at the streamer, though it’s unclear if Oldman will still be involved at that point.

“I’ve had an enviable career, but careers wane, and I do have other things that interest me outside of acting. When you’re young, you think you’re going to get round to doing all of them — read that book — then the years go by,” the actor said in a recent stop with The Sunday Times. “I’m 65 next year; 70 is around the corner. I don’t want to be active when I’m 80. I’d be very happy and honoured and privileged to go out as Jackson Lamb [his character in Slow Horses] — and then hang it up.”

The first season of the show adapted Herron’s Slow Horses while Season Two is set to adapt Dead Lions. It’s unclear if the series will continue adapting the books in order or switch things up.

“Well with a real-life character, if you take someone like Joe Orton (from 1987’s Prick Up Your Ears), even Oswald, there are family members who are still around. So, you with a fictional character you can take it, you’re at liberty, you have the freedom to take it places,” Oldman previously told ComicBook.com of his Slow Horses portrayal. “You could get a fictional character and decide to have, I don’t know, orange hair and do things with it that you have the freedom to do. When you when you’re playing a real-life character or someone who has lived, I think there’s a certain obligation that you have towards the family of the people who are still around. I feel that there’s a sense of responsibility. I mean when we were doing Darkest Hour, there was one day when I think it was 17 or 18 of the Churchill family came to the set and, you know you want to do them proud.”

He continued, “But I felt that that’s been, that may be a responsibility I’ve taken on and is, you know, maybe it really doesn’t matter. But I do, I do feel you can go places with a fictional character that can’t necessarily (do elsewhere).”