Gary Oldman knows Mank and those drinking issues: ‘I used to sweat vodka’

A year after he won the Oscar for his electric, persuasive portrayal of Winston Churchill in the 2017 biopic “Darkest Hour,” Gary Oldman began to feel twinges of insecurity about his work in the movie, and that soon turned into a black hole of self-doubt. Oldman tells me this from his home in Palm Springs, where he moved with Schmidt and her 12-year-old son, William, two years ago from Los Feliz because he grew weary of the traffic and how a trip to “pick up some milk and the dry cleaning would turn into a three-hour adventure and just kidnap your day.” Oldman’s anxiety reached new depths as he was preparing for “Mank,” David Fincher’s look at writer Herman Mankiewicz and the creation of “Citizen Kane.” Mankiewicz, the first theater critic for the New Yorker, came to Hollywood as the silent-film era was ending, working for studios as a script doctor. Thank you Known for movies about crime and chaos, director David Fincher delivers a personal tale with “Mank.” Fincher tells me he never doubted that Oldman could pull off Mankiewicz’s charm. That’s just there to mask the inadequacy.” Fincher pitched Mankiewicz to Oldman as a “lying-down part,” since the writer, recovering from a broken leg, spends much of the movie laid up in bed. Oldman describes the character as “rude, flatulent, knocking on the door of alcoholism, a smoker, not PC, overweight, no real dress sense, greasy hair, bad teeth.” “He’s fabulous,” Oldman says, laughing.