No fewer than 63 actors have played Winston Churchill on screen — 35 of them in movies and 28 on television. Gary Oldman just joined that list for his role as Churchill in Darkest Hour. According to Andrew Roberts, Oldman is one of the best three of those 63 actors. “I knew I didn’t look like him,” Oldman has said, according to The Spectator. “I thought that with some work I could approximate the voice. The challenge in part was the physicality because you’re playing someone whose silhouette is so iconic.” Everyone has their own idea of what Churchill should look and be like, but his personality was so strong that it is almost impossible for an actor to impose himself on the role. Therefore, most actors pull off a mere impersonation. But Oldman avoided this in Darkest Hour because he did his research. He watched old videos of Churchill on the newsreel. “What I discovered was a man who had this very athletic tread,” Oldman said, according to The Spectator. “He would skip around at 65 like a 30-year-old, he had a sparkle, the eyes were alive, he had a very sort of cherubic grin.” Roberts writes that this is something many actors who have portrayed Churchill have missed this. Roberts writes that the worst Churchill movie ever made was Churchill (2017) in which Brian Cox played the prime minister who was hoping to see D-Day fail. Roberts said he counted 120 historical inaccuracies in the movie.
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