Sure, he's played his share of unsavory characters over his illustrious 20-plus years as a film actor, but Gary Oldman wants you to know that his characters aren't always as they seem.

The most recent example of that is the esteemed actor's role as Carnegie, an iron-fisted ringleader in the new action thriller "The Book of Eli." Oldman said that just because his character is a man who takes to desperate measures to maintain order in post-apocalyptic world, he doesn't want him to be classified as a one-note villain.

"I've been talking to people all day and they so easily want to say, 'Oh, we love you playing villains, and he's a really despicable bad guy,' and I said, 'No, I think he's a little more complicated," Oldman related in a recent @ The Movies interview. "He's absolutely a survivalist."

The bad guy label that journalists try to pin on him baffles Oldman, especially since his roles in recent years include chivalrous turns as Sirius Black and Lt. Gordon in the "Harry Potter" and "Batman" movies, respectively. Moreover, Oldman is also at the point of his career where he can be choosy about the parts he considers, and stereotypical villain roles aren't on his list.

"Someone actually asked a question earlier today, 'When you get a script of a villain, at what point do you dial it up? What did you do for this villain this time?' It's like they think I pick a villain and have a dial from one to 10 and say, 'Well, for this one, I'm going to play it as an eight,'" Oldman mused. "I said, 'I don't read scripts that way. I didn't read Carnegie like that.' Villains to me are bad guys in James Bond movies. They're caricatures."

Opening in theaters Friday, "The Book of Eli" stars Denzel Washington in the title role of a man who's been wandering for 30 years across the decimated landscape of America following the final war. His sole purpose is to protect a sacred book that holds the key to saving the future of the human race, a book that, if Carnegie gets his hands on it, is vital to his plans of expanding his rule.

In "The Book of Eli," Carnegie rules over a town occupied by gunman and thieves. Among his captives, essentially, are his blind, common-law wife (Jennifer Beals) and step-daughter, Solara (Mila Kunis) -- who with Eli's arrival in Carnegie's town gets a glimpse of life outside her stepfather's domain.

Sure, people could flee the town, but what Carnegie has to offer to those willing to submit to his rule is something that makes billionaire oil man's acquirement of 200,000 acres of ground water rights in Texas in 2007 look downright genius.

"We obviously have all of these things around us that we take for granted. We've got all of these things: We've got food, refrigeration, heating and energy, and we turn a tap and water comes out of it or we can go to a supermarket and we buy it," Oldman observed. "That's one of the interesting dynamics in the movie. It's not gold or silver that Carnegie has, nor is it money or electricity. Its water that he has, and it's a means for survival."

Interesting character and story aside, Oldman said one of the big reasons he signed on to do "The Book of Eli" was simply for the opportunity to work with Washington.

"I have admired his work and been a fan of Denzel for as long as I can remember," Oldman said. "When you get on the set with him, you realize that he has a great sense of his own stardom and power and ability as an actor. He's very confident and really present in the game. That's the impression I get, but he may tell you a different story. He says, 'Well, I'm just as insecure as all the other people,' but I see real charisma. When you play opposite of that, you realize that he's very free because of it."

Oldman, 51, said that he loved the 55-year-old star's humility -- a grounded sense of self he believes has contributed to both their long careers.

"I've been a professional actor for 30 years. I guess you could say Denzel and I are old timers," Oldman said with a laugh.