Gary Oldman Makes Rare Appearance With Wife Gisele and Stepson William at 2024 Cannes Film Festival
Gary Oldman made a rare red carpet appearance with his wife, Gisele Schmidt, and her son, William Schmidt, during the worldwide premiere of his film Parthenope at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.
Oldman, 66, was all smiles as cameras flashed at the 77th annual film festival in France while wearing a navy blue tuxedo with a black dress shirt, matching bowtie and statement pocket square. Gisele, for her part, wore an elegant black gown while she held hands with her husband and teenage son, who also looked dapper in a classic black tux.
The family gathered to celebrate the premiere of Oldman’s latest project. The film, directed by Paolo Sorrentino, is an epic spanning several decades and also stars Celeste Dalla Porta, Stefania Sandrelli, Luisa Ranieri and Isabella Ferrari. Oldman plays author John Cheever, and Sorrentino said character preparation was relatively easy since the actor “can play anything.”
“I think [Oldman] knew Cheever’s work quite well. Actually, he’s the one who told me how he would play Cheever. He said, ‘There is a very good John Cheever interview on YouTube. I saw it, I understood it, and I know how to do him,’” Sorrentino, 53, told Variety about directing Oldman. “And that was the end of that character’s preparation. Oldman is one of the top five actors in the world. He can play anything.”
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Oldman’s career is unmatched, and he’s had the support of Gisele since they wed in 2017. Before their relationship, Oldman was married to Lesley Manville from 1987 to 1990, Uma Thurman from 1990 to 1992, Donya Fiorentino from 1997 to 2001 and Alexandra Edenborough from 2008 to 2015. He and Manville welcomed their son, Alfie Oldman, in 1988, and he shares sons Gulliver and Charlie, who were born in 1997 and 1999, respectively, with Fiorentino.
While his biological children are fully grown, Oldman had sole custody of Gulliver and Charlie in the early 2000s, which resulted in him having to turn down a lot of roles.
“At 42 years old, I woke up divorced and I had custody of these boys and so that, in itself, was…" he said during an interview on The Drew Barrymore Show in December 2023. "That was hard because there was a shift in the industry where a lot of productions were being [filmed in], it was Hungary, Budapest, Prague, Australia, you know, all of these places.”
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He credited The Dark Knight and Harry Potter for keeping his career alive during a difficult time as a single father.
“Thank God for Harry Potter. I tell you, the two — Batman and Harry Potter — really, they saved me,” he told Barrymore, 49, about his ability to frequently fly back and forth between London and Los Angeles while working. “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.”
