Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: A gathering of British intelligence

Gary Oldman is shown in a scene from 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.' Photo / AP

Gary Oldman may play the leading role of George Smiley in the screen revival of John le Carre's 1974 novel, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy but this depiction of a Cold War MI6 has some serious talent in its ranks. Smiley's people include reigning best Oscar winner Colin Firth, as well as veterans John Hurt, Ciaran Hinds, Mark Strong and Toby Jones. And it even has room for two bright young things - the brawny Tom Hardy and the captivating Benedict Cumberbatch.

The task of condensing a 400-page novel into a sleek feature film running just over two hours, while retaining the nuance of the story and characters, proved a daunting task for the British screenwriting couple Peter Straughan and Bridget O'Connor, who has since died of cancer. Straughan points out that choices had to be made in the 1979 mini-series too. "A couple of characters were cut, even though they had seven hours. We never intended to do the whole book. We had to find a fillet to cut out and go with that."

The job of helming the movie - which was financed in full by the French company StudioCanal, making it an all-European production - was given to Swedish director Tomas Alfredson, who had shown his cool restraint on a genre film in his 2008 vampire horror Let the Right One In.

But Alfredson doesn't see much of a cultural divide. "We are breastfed with the BBC and American television in Sweden," he says.

Casting for the lead spymaster, George Smiley, was a major challenge.

"We struggled for 10 months to come up with the right actor for the part," explains Alfredson. "Smiley is described as someone you would immediately forget, so it's understandably quite hard to choose the right face for it. I think Gary is fantastic as he has done so many films and he knows that you can express things with your neck, like he does in the film, and that it could be even more powerful than with your face towards the camera."

If Alfredson was intimidated by such a towering array of talent, Hurt says he was very much the leader at the top of the pyramid and they gladly followed his lead.

"Tomas understood the material and didn't bring any sentimentality. He wasn't romantic about it because he isn't British. Eyebrows might behave been raised but the characters remain quintessentially English. The film isn't about car chases; he was very loyal to the source material. The pacing is very European. It's a European movie and we were all very happy about that."

Firth would have loved to have played Smiley, and instead portrays Bill Haydon, the most stylish of the four MI6 spooks who are suspected double agents. But he admits Oldman was the right man for the job.

"Most people were confused about Tomas' casting of Gary Oldman as a man who is much older, rather quiet and rather reserved but we now see it was absolutely inspired. I think people see Gary as a demonstrative actor who is brilliant at transformations and I think he is one of the best actors on the planet."

Lowdown

Who: Gary Oldman
What: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the film of the John le Carre spy classic previously adapted in the 1979 television series starring Alec Guinness
When: Opens at cinemas on Thursday

-TimeOut