Harry Potter's Great British Thespians

Gary Oldman as Sirius Black, 3-5, 8
The prisoner of Azkaban himself, Sirius is reviled in the official wizarding community but was cherished by James and Lily Potter, at whose wedding he was best man, and he becomes an attentive if furtive godfather to Harry. Playing haunted creatures is nothing new to Oldman, 52, who enjoyed big early splashes as the Sex Pistols' Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy and gay playwright Joe Orton in Prick Up Your Ears. He was Lee Harvey Oswald in Oliver Stone's JFK and a rodentoid Dracula for Francis Coppola. Oldman's scenery-shredding performance style has become more sedated of late; he played the harried, sympathetic Commissioner Gordon in the first two films of the current Batman cycle.

• Growing Up with Harry Potter