Gary Oldman, one of those actors who so effortlessly disappears into a role, making every performance of his different.

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In his long and illustrious career, Oldman has been Count Dracula, Winston Churchill, George Smiley, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Lee Harvey Oswald and Herman Mankiewicz. As well as a nasty pimp, a corrupt DEA Agent,a terrorist leader who hijacks a plane.

Actually for me, growing up in the 90s, Gary Oldman was usually the bad guy, first time I saw him was as Count Dracula in Coppola's 1992 version, and he was just terrifying in it.

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And the sleazy, brutish pimp Drexl Spivey in True Romance, suitably nasty.

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One of the greatest bad guys on screen in Leon: The Professional as Norman Stansfield, the corrupt DEA agent, slimy to the core.

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And Egor Korshunov in Air Force One, would be as memorable a bad guy as Alan Rickman was in Die Hard.

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Hence it was a surprise for me to see him as the principled comissioner James Gordon, fighting crime in Gotham City, in Nolan's Batman series. I honestly expected him to turn nasty somewhere in the middle, so used I was to seeing him as the bad guy.

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And makes a perfect George Smiley, bringing in the right mix of cunning, genius needed for the role.

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And he was a spitting image of Winston Churchill in The Darkest Hour, right down to the voice, and the body language.

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Happy Birthday Gary, awaiting your turn as Harry Truman in Nolan's biopic on Oppenheimer.