Gary Oldman Names The Film Of His He's 'Triggered' By When Watching

Sir Gary Oldman has admitted there’s one hugely popular film of his that he still struggles to sit through.

The newly-knighted British actor recently sat down with the Happy Sad Confused podcast for a career-spanning conversation about his life and acting.

During the discussion, host Josh Horowitz brought up The Fifth Element, the sci-fi movie Sir Gary starred in back in 1997.

While the film – which also featured Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich and Chris Tucker – split opinion down the middle upon its original release, it’s since gone on to become a cult classic with a loyal following.

However, it seems Sir Gary is not a part of that.

The Oscar winner revealed that while his wife of eight years, Gisele Schmidt, has talked him round from hating the film, it’s still not one he’d want to watch without her encouragement.

“She has convinced me that it’s a better film than I think it is,” he said, to laughter from the audience. “I’m contaminated, because I was the one who had that haircut. And I was the one who was wearing rubber. So, others can experience it in a different way. I get a little triggered when I see it, and I go back to that place of Jean-Paul Gaultier and rubber.”

He added: “Bruce didn’t like [that] either. You know that orange vest that he wears? He hated it.”

During a 2014 interview with Playboy, Sir Gary claimed he “can’t bear” watching The Fifth Element, having said at a Bafta event years earlier: “It was me singing for my supper because [director Luc Besson] had come in and partly financed Nil By Mouth.”

It’s fair to say that Sir Gary has no issues criticising his own past work, though.

That same Playboy interview saw him admitting he’s unimpressed with his own performance in Sid & Nancy, claiming he “didn’t want to make it in the first place” and was “talked into it at the time”.

In 2023, he also described his performance as Sirius Black in the Harry Potter movies as “mediocre”.

“If I sat and watched myself in something and said, ‘My God, I’m amazing,’ that would be a very sad day, because you want to make the next thing better,” he added.