Gary Oldman is ready to retire from acting.

The 64-year-old star has no plans to still be "active" in his career when he turns 80 and still has other interests he'd like to find the time for before it's too late, so would be "very happy" if playing Jackson Lamb in spy drama 'Slow Horses', turns out to be his final role.

He told the Sunday Times Culture magazine: "I've had an enviable career, but careers wain, and I do have other things that interest me outside of acting.

“When you’re young you think you’re going to get round to doing all of them — read that book — then the years go by...

“I’m 65 next year, 70 is around the corner. I don’t want to be active when I’m 80.

"I’d be very happy and honoured and privileged to go out as Jackson Lamb — and then hang it up."

Gary has signed up for at least two more series of 'Slow Horses' and, two seasons into the show, loves working on the programme because it fills a void he's missed from no longer doing theatre.

He said: "'Slow Horses' is the closest thing to a theatre company I’ve known in years.

“We all get on. I miss theatre’s camaraderie. I didn’t plan to stop doing theatre, it just happened.”

The 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban' star is amazed by how many people have confided in him about their own secret former lives as spies, but he's pleased they find 'Slow Horses' "realistic".

He said: “These are normal people who happen to be spies.

“A surprising number of people tell me they used to work in the world and it’s quite realistic. They have trouble with the ex, they’ve got a divorce that’s messy, they’ve got to arrange to see the kids, which I find deeply touching and sad.

"Having been divorced, I’ve experienced that and it is heartbreaking.”