Oscar talk for Oldman's mild-mannered Smiley

“I’ve waited 30 years to play this part,” Gary Oldman was saying as he sat at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel the other day.

Considering that George Smiley, the mild-mannered spy in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” is the kind of person who normally could be ignored, one can’t help but wonder what the attraction is to an actor known for manic, excessive characters.

From the Sex Pistols’ ill-fated bassist Sid Vicious in “Sid and Nancy” to Lee Harvey Oswald in “JFK,” Oldman has made a career of playing weirdo villains.

Coupled with his real-life rebel shenanigans, and an arrest or two to augment his image, he has a reputation as something of a hell-raiser – both on and off the screen.

He was Count Dracula in Francis Ford Coppola’s film version. He menaced another president, this time a fictional one played by Harrison Ford, in “Air Force One.”

He married Uma Thurman and dated Isabella Rossellini – awesome achievements in their own right. He crossed over into mainstream movies with outings as Sirius Black opposite boy wonder Harry Potter, and as James Gordon in Christopher Nolan’s “Batman” films, the latest of which is expected to set box-office records again this summer.

On the respectable side, Oldman portrayed Ludwig van Beethoven in 1994’s “Immortal Beloved.”

Despite the showy roles, he has never been nominated for an Academy Award, although younger stars such as Ryan Gosling and Johnny Depp hail Oldman as their favorite actor.

With the part of George Smiley – for which there is Oscar talk – Oldman is bidding to cement his place in the revered ranks of Britain’s A-list acting fraternity.

Smiley, the “hero” of John le Carré’s 1974 novel, previously has been associated with the legendary Alec Guinness, who played the spy in a memorable seven-part television miniseries in 1979.

“To follow Sir Alec is terrifying,” Oldman says. “But then, there have been many Romeos, Hamlets and King Lears. There must be room for another George Smiley.”

At 53, Oldman is graying and wears spectacles, although his are more stylish than those donned by Smiley in the movie. In fact, production was held up while the actor searched for the perfect eyeglasses for the role; he found them in an antiques shop in California and shipped them to London, where six copies were made for the filming.

Smiley is the undercover spy who tries to uncover a double agent working for the Russians within the British espionage agency known as “the Circus.” The story, set in 1973 during the Cold War, is filled with multiple moles and several subplots that have kept readers guessing for years.

“I’ll admit that the pacing is slow, but so is life and so is tension,” Oldman says. “ It is not in 3-D. It’s for grown-ups, and I think it’s nice to see a quiet thriller.”

Oldman admires director Tomas Alfredson for resisting the temptation to ramp up the action and go “the ‘Bourne Identity’ or the James Bond route.”

“I have never had a role in which I have to play silences so often,” Oldman says. “I sometimes felt that if I got any quieter, I’d be dead.”

Smiley is the type of guy who adjusts his body temperature to the temperature of the room, but Oldman disagrees with any notion that the British agent is merely a nerd who avoids action.

“There is a bit of the sadist in George,” the actor says. “He can be quite mean and cruel. He likes to tease people, but then he has to stay under the radar, too. It’s quite hard to play him, actually.

“I like George quite a lot, but then I like every character I’ve played.”

Considering the lowlifes, drug addicts and criminals he has brought to life on the big screen, that’s saying a lot.

Oldman was born in London, the son of a former sailor who worked as a welder. He was abusive, the actor says, and deserted the family when Gary was 7.

As a child, Oldman was an accomplished singer and pianist and often has said that his real ambition was to be a musician. He performed a vocal duet with David Bowie on Reeves Gabrels’ album “The Sacred Squall of Now” and tutored co-star Daniel Radcliffe on bass guitar during breaks in the filming of the “Harry Potter” films.

After getting a bachelor’s degree in theater, Oldman worked on stage for eight years before landing the role of Sex Pistol Vicious in “Sid and Nancy.” He lost so much weight for the part that he was briefly hospitalized, but the movie established him as a punk figurehead and bewildered man-child.

He followed that film with “Prick Up Your Ears” as underground playwright Joe Orton, whose male lover (played by Alfred Molina in a star-making role) beat him to death with a hammer. To say the least, it attracted attention.

Oldman moved to the United States in the early 1990s and landed the part of Oswald in Oliver Stone’s “JFK.” In “Jesus” in 1999, Oldman played Pontius Pilate, and one magazine dubbed him Hollywood’s “pyscho deluxe.”

Oldman’s battles with alcoholism have been much publicized, as was his arrest for drunken driving with friend Kiefer Sutherland in the car.

Today, Oldman is a tee­totaler and praises Alcoholics Anonymous as an organization that has helped him a great deal.

He has been married four times. He has a son, Alfie, with his first wife, and has custody of the two sons, Gulliver and Charlie, from his third marriage. In 2008, he wed singer Alexandra Edenborough.

Oldman refuses to say anything about “The Dark Knight Rises,” the Batman movie set to open this summer. He again will play Everyman James Gordon.

“If I told you anything, I’d have to kill you,” he says, and you hope he’s joking. “I got maybe the best review of my life for playing that role. Some critic said that I was so good that I could make virtue look interesting. Now that’s an achievement. If you can make virtue look interesting, you can play anything.”

Oldman has avoided the Hollywood celebrity scene, saying, “It’s a separate career, and I have no energy for it.”

But his turns in the “Potter” and the “Batman” films have made it more difficult for him to remain anonymous.

“I can hide less,” he says. “The plus side is that, with ‘Harry Potter,’ I have at last been in some films that my kids can see. Before these, they probably wondered what I did for a living.”

Mal Vincent, 757-446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com