Gary Oldman on 'Nil By Mouth'

The director discusses his debut as a writer-director, which is playing as part of Time Out London on Screen.

Sep 21 2006

For his debut as writer-director, fuelled in part by memories of alcoholism and violence in his family and among friends, Gary Oldman wisely returned to south-east London, shooting scenes in the streets, housing estates and pubs in and around Deptford and New Cross. What follows is an extract from an interview by Geoff Andrew with Oldman that took place partly in the south London home of his mother and appeared in Time Out in September 1997.

'I wanted the film to represent the culture and neighbourhood I came from, which is why I breathed a sigh of relief when it went down so well with the British people who've seen it. I made it for Britain; in my arrogant way, I said fuck the rest of the world, fuck America, I’m not watering down the accents. Mum thought it was accurate. And I'd like the folks round here to see it, because it's not just an art-movie, it's a love letter to them.

'There were two things I didn't want to do: patronise or take the piss out of them, because they're great people and I love them, or to show them sentimentally. Like, my mum's had a right time of it: after my dad left, she had to have two jobs. She brought me up without a pot to piss in, and I've never heard her complain. So when I made the film, I was like the sentimentality police. For the scene when [Ray Winstone's character] Raymond's talking about his own father not having shown him love, he's really talking about himself, of course; his denial about the way he treats his family is such that he still talks about himself in the third person.

'But the film is also a love-letter to my father. I'm a recovering alcoholic myself, and I think I drank over him for the best part of 25 years. My passport to manhood was being pushed into the boozer at around 14 or 15; you'd stand at the bar, order light and keg, play darts, fart, swear and slag everybody off. Later on, there were a lot of unresolved issues; I carried a lot of resentment I couldn't channel. Then dad died from alcoholism, and there were things I'd never said. So – and I suppose this is where some sentimentality creeps in – the film is like me saying, 'Wherever you are, I had to resolve this, but I forgive you.'

'Raymond is a cocktail, an amalgamation of a few different people. My own alcoholism is in there, and there's a bit of my father, and someone I knew at school, and an ex-brother-in-law. But as Ray Winstone says, the men carry on like that and the women put up with it all because they think the rest of the world does that, too! I can't really explain the women's attitude: maybe, for some, it's the fear and shame, maybe some would rather be in a relationship like that than in an indifferent one or in none at all. I've seen my sister, with an ex-boyfriend of hers, pour a bottle of vodka down the sink and tell him, "You're taking the fucking piss: all you ever do is fall asleep in front of the telly or go out with your mates, and that's my life." And then she'd turn around and say, "Oh, but I love him." It's a bit more like that old Russian gag: "I don’t think Vladimir loves me any more – he hasn't hit me for three days."

'In dealing with drugs and drink, I tried not to go into the world of films like 'Pulp Fiction' or 'Trainspotting'. I see it differently; I've known a lot of people who've ruined their lives or died because of the drugs and drink thing, and I find it very hard to show it as all romantic or glamorous. You know, you drink Bacardi and you're supposed to imagine yourself sitting on a beach with a naked bird; what they don't say is that Bacardi can also make you vomit over your clothes and lose your dignity. Now, obviously, I'm not saying that happens to everyone, and if you have given up, you shouldn't try to stop everybody else drinking in your company: recovering alcoholics have got to realise that alcohol is out there and it's not going to go away.

'But, at the same time, I never wanted 'Nil by Mouth' to be sermonising. Even though the film is political – just look at how these people are fucking living! – I'm not in-your-face didactic; it's just that I can talk about the damaging effects of drink and drugs; I know what I'm talking about.'

'Nil By Mouth' screens at the Cineworld Wandsworth on Sunday and Stratford Picture House on Thursday Sept 28

• 
•