It's only the second time he's repeated himself as an actor. The first was playing Sirius Black in the Harry Potter pictures; The Prisoner of Azkaban, The Goblet of Fire and The Order of the Phoenix in which Sirius is killed off. "He went through the veil and disappeared," Oldman says.

Which reminds him: He was working on A Christmas Carol when a young Harry Potter fan intercepted him one day after a day of filming. "A little kid came up to me and he said, 'Can you tell me what Sirius saw on the other side of the veil?' " he recalls.

And what did the actor say? Oldman smiles: "I said, 'The Dark Knight and then A Christmas Carol.' "