It’s a rite of passage for every first-year witch and wizard attending the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: filling into the Great Hall at the start of terms to be sorted into one of the four houses of Hogwarts. By stepping forth and donning the Sorting Hat, young witches and wizards in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter are determined to belong in Gryffindor (“where dwell the brave at heart”), Hufflepuff (“where they are just and loyal”), Ravenclaw (“where those of wit and learning will always find their kind”), or Slytherin (where “cunning folk use any means to achieve their ends”).
More than 20 years after Gary Oldman first played wizard Sirius Black in 2004’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Oldman has been sorted into a Hogwarts house for the first time.
Rather than being sorted by the Sorting Hat, however, Happy Sad Confused host Josh Horowitz helped an initially confused Oldman determine his Hogwarts house in a new interview. We’ve cued the moment up to watch below:
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“Have you ever sorted yourself into a Harry Potter house? Do you know what house you’d be in?” Horowitz asked.
“Have I ever what?” Oldman responded. When Horowitz explained the concept of trait-based sorting, Oldman laughed, “I’ve no idea.”
Horowitz then listed some attributes to determine whether Oldman is a Gryffindor, like his character Sirius Black, or another house entirely. “Loyalty, hardwork, patience, fairness, dedication. Does that describe you?” he asked.
When it was determined that Oldman belongs in Hufflepuff house, the actor stood up and declared, “I’m a Hufflepuff!”
He then turned to the audience. “A Hufflepuff? I’m in the bloody movies and I can’t pronounce it,” Oldman said. “I’m a Huffenpuff? A Hufflepuff. I had no idea I was a Hufflepuff. Have you ever huffled your puff?”
Oldman appeared as Sirius Black, the godfather of Daniel Radcliffe’s Boy Who Lived, in four Harry Potter movies between 2004 and 2011. Oldman reunited with Radcliffe for the Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts special that aired in 2022 on HBO Max to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the first film, 2001’s The Philosopher’s Stone/The Sorcerer’s Stone.
“He’s painted as this villainous guy, and then has this switch where you go, ‘Ah, he was set up.’ He’s a good guy,” Oldman said on the reunion special of Sirius, the titular Prisoner of Azkaban who was framed for a Muggle massacre and falsely accused of betraying his godson’s parents to the Dark Lord Voldemort. “He’s kind of cool. I wish I’d had the whole picture. We only ever found out book-by-book.”
During a later appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2023, Oldman said of the franchise, “Thank God for Harry Potter.”
“I tell you, the two — Batman and Harry Potter — really, they saved me,” he added of his role as Jim Gordon in the Christopher Nolan-directed Dark Knight trilogy. “Because it meant that I could do the least amount of work for the most amount of money and then be home with the kids.”
