because who needs a life anyway?

theredhairing:

“I had to do a lot of research on this one because there was only ten percent of the part on the page. Oliver said, ‘You’re just going to have to improvise it. For instance, the script would just say, ‘Lee and Marina have a fight.’ No lines, no clue as to what they’re fighting about. Beata and I would talk to people and sit down together and figure it out, then we’d meet with Oliver and he’d say, ‘Okay, tell me what this scene’s about.’ It was like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute and free-falling, and trusting that there’a a big air bag underneath the clouds to catch you.”

“So I read books, met Lee’s widow, Marina Oswald, visited various scenes of the crime and talked to conspiracy researchers. In the process, I became something of a conspiracy buff myself. The subject is so vast, you get completely sucked in. A friend of mine said that it was better than a relationship. I did about three months on it, I became a detective. It’s like you have your own investigation going on. You’re trying to piece together this man who’s a complete enigma.”

“Where he did, I died. Right on the spot. The corridor was the real corridor. The elevator was the real elevator. The landlady’s house was the real landlady’s house. We even found his furniture, his bed and his wardrobe.”

“As an actor, I had real trouble with Oswald’s voice. He had the most unusual speaking pattern I’ve ever heard. It’s disjointed, there’s no consistency of pronunciation, no rhythm, no real accent. I didn’t know where to start. But it made it even more interesting, that, of all people, he would have to sound like that. Someone said to me last night, ‘I love the bits where they intercut you and the real Oswald, and I said, ‘There is no real Oswald — it’s all me,’ and they went, ‘My God, you are him.’ That’s what you set out to achieve.”

-Gary Oldman on playing Lee Harvey Oswald in Oliver Stone’s JFK.

(via hammandbuble)