Gary Oldman is planning on playing Churchill again

The actor is adapting Churchill’s short story 'The Dream.'

Gary Oldman, the frontrunner for the best actor Oscar, is contemplating returning to his role as Winston Churchill, the character he played in Darkest Hour, for which he’s won almost every major acting award this season.

Speaking Feb. 14 at Loyola Marymount University’s School of Film & TV, he said he was adapting a short story Churchill had written, and that it might bring him back to the stage for the first time in more than two decades. Oldman made his mark in the theater before beginning a three-decade film career with 1986’s Sid and Nancy.

The story, written in 1947, is called The Dream, and, said Oldman: “It’s [about] the ghost of his father, Randolph, who visits him in his studio at Chartwell [Churchill’s country residence]. It’s two people, not an expensive thing to do. It might be something I’ll try and get on its feet. I long to go back [to the stage]. It’ll be quite terrifying, I’m sure, after 20 years.”

Oldman also said there had been talk about making another Churchill-oriented film, this time centering on the famous Yalta Conference of 1945, with Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Neither project at the moment is beyond the idea stage.

“There could be ,” he said, “because at the end of the war, there’s the summit with Stalin and [Roosevelt]. Roosevelt’s a great character; he’s on his way out.

So maybe.” Still, he admitted, after shooting Darkest Hour and spending hours each day getting ready for the role, “I need a break from the makeup chair.”