Frazer Harrison/Getty Images, Dave Hogan/Getty Images Jack White and Gary OldmanEven though he has never been any of these things in real life, Gary Oldman has slipped seamlessly into the film roles of a violent, dreadlocked pimp; a vampire count; and a man who sliced off his own face. Now can he play the part of the director of a live concert broadcast, without having done it before?
Jack White believes he can, and has tapped Mr. Oldman, the Academy Award-nominated star of last fall’s “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” to direct an online stream of a concert he will perform on April 27 at Webster Hall in Manhattan to promote the April 24 release of Mr. White’s solo album “Blunderbuss.”
“It just fell from the sky,” Mr. Oldman said of his unlikely assignment. “Occasionally you get calls and they just drop in. I didn’t have to think very quickly about it. I just said, ‘Yeah, that sounds very good.’ ”
The concert, which will be shown online at 9 p.m. Eastern time on April 27 at www.youtube.com/JackWhiteVEVO, is the latest entry in the American Express Unstaged series, a two-year-old program that has paired Arcade Fire with Terry Gilliam; My Morning Jacket with Todd Haynes; and Mary J. Blige with Adam Shankman for concert Webcasts. A 2011 Unstaged event for which Coldplay was directed by Anton Corbijn drew more than 19 million streams, press representatives for the series said.
En route to Mr. White’s home base in Nashville, Mr. Oldman said in a telephone interview that Mr. White selected him after being told he could choose any director “within reason.” (When you are a rock star who says he learned to weld from Bob Dylan, apparently all things are attainable.)
Mr. Oldman, a long time fan of Mr. White’s music, happily accepted. Of Mr. White’s former duo the White Stripes, Mr. Oldman said they were “the band that you were amazed to find out was just drums and guitar – it was two of them and it sounded like six of them.”
Since accepting the invitation, Mr. Oldman said he has been batting around ideas in e-mails with Mr. White, who is not exactly known for his embrace of modern technology.
“These are not extensive e-mails,” Mr. Oldman explained with a laugh. “These are one-liners, two-liners. A question and then he writes back and says, ‘Yeah, that’s cool.’ I think he probably uses it reluctantly, out of necessity. I don’t think he has a cellphone.”
Better known for acting in the “Harry Potter” and “Dark Knight” movies (among numerous others), Mr. Oldman has directed the occasional music video and short film, as well as the 1997 feature “Nil By Mouth,” for which he also wrote the screenplay. (“But that was in the old days when we shot it all on film,” Mr. Oldman said.)
Asked if he had any previous experience directing live broadcasts, Mr. Oldman said, “No. No. No.” Still, he was confident he could handle the 12 or 13 cameras he would be overseeing from a control room in the bowels of Webster Hall.
“It’s very much a collaboration,” Mr. Oldman said of the event. “It’s not just me sitting in the driving seat – you’re dependent on a lot of people for this to really run smoothly. But we’re all driven by vibrancy and the energy of Jack White. He’s the man at the helm, so to speak.”
Though his movie characters include a famous pianist and a notorious bassist, Mr. Oldman said he should not be expected to join in with Mr. White’s band.
“I’m a bit rusty on the music side,” he said. Although, he added, “I’ve been playing the ukulele a lot lately, actually.”
Of course he has.
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