Did Gary Oldman have a weight gain for Slow Horses? Well, to portray the character of an unkempt and overweight spy, he did. The actor gained about 15 pounds in 2021 before the first season and then kept it for the latter seasons. He has avoided wearing a padded bodysuit. Gary Oldman recently said that he prepared for the part, in terms of weight gain, by making sure he gets his calories in.
Gary Oldman is easily one of the most brilliant acting talents to come out of Britain. He is simply great; you can see it in the variety of characters he has seamlessly embodied. There’s a reason he gets such a high degree of appreciation and respect from the acting industry. His versatility and intense acting style is what has rewarded him. He has various accolades to his name, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and three British Academy Film Awards.
Gary Oldman recently made his return as Jackson Lamb on the third season of the spy drama Slow Horses. Appearance-wise, his character in the drama is unhygienic, unkempt, and overweight. Being untidy and unkempt is not much of a challenge unlike gaining weight in preparation for movies and shows. So, what people want to know is the weight gain process of Oldman for the role of Jackson Lamb because he surely had to put on weight for it, right? Has he said anything about it? Did he gain weight for Slow Horses? Let’s find out!
Also, check out the weight gain stories of Chrystia Freeland and Jillian Barberie.
Gary Oldman’s Weight Gain for Slow Horses: He Just Kept on Eating to Get Fat!
Did Gary Oldman gain weight for Slow Horses? In an interview in 2021, he mentioned something about gaining 15 pounds for the first season of the show. He seems to have continued on with that weight gain for the latter seasons.
Gary Oldman had a weight gain of 15 pounds before filming the first season of Slow Horses.
Image Source: Variety
Oldman is not a novice in playing spies. He played John le Carré’s cerebral gentleman spy George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and earned an Oscar nomination for it. Eleven years after that, in 2022, he reprised his role as an undercover agent for Slow Horses, a 12-part series for Apple TV+, which is based on Slough House novels, Mick Herron‘s bestselling spy books. The third season of the show debuted a few days ago, and since its release, Google searches for Gary’s weight gain have been trending.
So, did Gary Oldman gain weight for Slow Horses? This question was asked after the release of the first and second season of the spy thriller and it was bound to come now as well because the character Oldman is portraying in the show is Jackson Lamb, an unpleasant and obnoxious leader of a gang of dejected British spies who seems to have given up on life and appearance too. He’s unhygienic, unkempt, and desperately needs a shower. He smokes and drinks on the job, eats junk, and is overweight. Hence, the curiosity about his weight gain.
The Darkest Hour actor, in real life, seems fit enough and he certainly does not sport a generous paunch like Jackson Lamb does. So, what did he do for the role? Did he go with prosthetics and extra padding to look the part or did he actually gain weight for Slow Horses? Well, from what he said in a recent interview, it looks like he did put on weight for the series by eating pasta and doughnuts and making sure he gets all the calories he needs. That’s the secret of Gary Oldman’s weight gain.
I put on a few pounds for Tinker Tailor for George Smiley.Couldn’t really shake it off. Lamb is a person who really enjoys his food. He’s overweight; he’s unhealthy. Well, fantastic, we’ll just keep eating past and the doughnuts. How do I prepare for the part? Make sure I get my calories in.
Gary Oldman Had a Weight Gain of 15 Pounds Before Slow Horses’ First Season!
Gary Oldman said he didn’t gain much for Slow Horses because there was no time.
Image Source: Deadline
How much weight did the English actor put on for Slow Horses? Well, not more than a few pounds. That’s what he said in an interview shortly after the release of the first season. As it turned out, he didn’t need to pile on much weight for the role of Jackson Lamb because there wasn’t much time to have a weight gain of more than a few pounds. Even then, he didn’t go for a padded bodysuit like he did with Darkest Hour because as Gary Oldman said,
Darkest Hour was a single shot. But I felt with this, if we are lucky enough that it becomes a long-running series, I thought five years of padding and a wig would make me want to throw myself off somewhere high.
The 65-year-old did say that he didn’t gain much but he looked very bulky and had a prominent beer belly in Slow Horses and that can’t have been with just a few pounds. And a few pounds, it was not. It was 15 pounds. He may not have had time to gain much after he was scheduled to shoot for the series but he did have a lot of extra weight on him while he was set to film the show. Gary Oldman had gained about 15 pounds for Mank and that was his weight gain for Slow Horses as well.
How did he gain that 15 pounds? Well, it was not his first time piling on pounds to play a secret agent. He ate a lot of chips, hamburgers, and ice-cream puddings to look the part of George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. And he may have done the exact same thing for weight gain before he filmed for Slow Horses.
