Warner Bros.
Gary Oldman said roles in the "Harry Potter" and "The Dark Knight" movies "saved" him when he became a single father.
Appearing on "The Drew Barrymore Show," the 65-year-old actor said the roles allowed him to be able to spend more time with his children.
Oldman was cast as Sirius Black in 2004's "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," a role he would reprise in the fourth and fifth instalments, as well as in the final film.
He then took up a role as Gotham City detective James "Jim" Gordon in Christopher Nolan's Batman films, "The Dark Knight Trilogy."
Oldman said that both roles gave his career a much-needed boost at a time when he was turning down other jobs as a result of being given custody of his young sons.
"At 42 years old, I woke up you know, sort of divorced and I had custody of these boys," Oldman told Barrymore.
"That, in itself, was … that was hard because there was a shift in the industry where a lot of productions were … in Hungary, Budapest, Prague, Australia, you know, all of these places. So, I turned down a lot of work."
"Thank God for 'Harry Potter,'" he continued. "I tell you, the two — 'Batman' and 'Harry Potter' — really, they saved me, because it meant that I could do the least amount of work for the most amount of money and then be home with the kids."
He said that Nolan was accommodating to him on the set of "Batman Begins" and allowed him to fly back and forth from his home in Los Angeles to London, where the shoot was taking place so that his sons didn't feel like they were "being brought up by a nanny."
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"London doubled for Gotham. And I did 27 round trips of flying back from LA," Oldman said. "I'd fly in for a day. I'd do a shoot a day."
"To Chris Nolan's credit, he stayed on schedule," he added.
Oldman has been married five times. With his first wife, "The Crown" star Lesley Manville, he shares his oldest son, Alfie. He was married to Uma Thurman for two years, and then to American model Donya Fiorentino, with whom he welcomed two sons, Gulliver, and Charlie.
During their divorce, Fiorentino accused her ex-husband of domestic assault. The allegations were investigated and eventually cleared, leading to Oldman receiving custody of their children, The Telegraph reported.
The actor's fourth wife was English singer and actress Alexandra Edenborough. He has a stepson through his fifth and current wife, art curator Gisele Schmidt.
