Gary Oldman Quotations

I was quiet, a loner. I was one of those children where, if you put me in a room and gave me some crayons and a pencils, you wouldn't hear from me for nine straight hours. And I was always drawing racing cars and rockets and spaceships and planes, things that were very fast that would take me away.

Your own barometer is all you have to go by, and often what makes a good director is knowing when not to say something. On occasions you can find yourself on a film set where the person who is wearing the director's hat is only trying to justify his position.

I applaud anything that can take a kid away from a PlayStation or a Gameboy. That is a miracle in itself.

Wanting to be a good actor is not good enough. You must want to be a great actor. You just have to have that.

Change is vital to any actor. If you keep playing lead after lead, you're really gonna dry up. Because all those vehicles wean you away from the truths of human behaviour.

I know what it means to do a job... I worked in a factory. I respect people in the service industry. What irritates me more is when people aren't respectful. There's a lot of nonsense behavior, especially in a place like Hollywood. The money, the power, they create little monsters.

You choose your friends by their character and your socks by their color.

A lazy man works twice as hard. My mother told that to me, and now I say it to my kids. If you're writing an essay, keep it in the lines and in the margins so you don't have to do it over.

And costume is so important for an actor. It absolutely helps to get into character; it's the closest thing to you, it touches you. Some actors like to go into make-up and then put their clothes on, but I like to dress first; that's my routine.

People who know me, they know I have a sense of humor, I'm a bit of a joker, a bit of a clown really, and I would love someone to exploit that side of me and send me a romantic comedy.

It's becoming increasingly harder and harder; there's no such thing as independent film anymore. There aren't any, they don't exist. In the old days you could go and get a certain amount of the budget with foreign sales, now everybody wants a marketable angle.

I'm not the best audience for that because I'm not a great science-fiction fan. I just never got off on space ships and space costumes, things like that.

Getting sober was one of the three pivotal events in my life, along with becoming an actor and having a child. Of the three, finding my sobriety was the hardest thing.

My passion and energy get mistaken for anger.

I'm probably a Libertarian, if I had to put myself in any category. But you don't come out and talk about these things, for obvious reasons.

Culturally, politically, everywhere you look... Read the newspaper. Go online. Our world has gone to hell.

Speaking very generally, I find that women are spiritually, emotionally, and often physically stronger than men.

There will always be spies. We have to have them. Without them we wouldn't have got Osama bin Laden - it took us years, but it happened.

I love the simple poetry of theater, where you can stand in a spotlight on a stage and wrap a coat around you, and say, 'It was 1860 and it was winter...'

People imagine that actors are being offered everything and you are not. So things come in and sometimes there are things that I want and can't get a meeting on, or go to a different actors.

Reality TV to me is the museum of social decay.

You take what you know, and you put it through your own prism. If I play characters that break down or cry, it's Gary Oldman crying; it's not the character crying.

At the Oscars, if you didn't vote for '12 Years a Slave,' you were a racist. You have to be very careful about what you say. I do have particular views and opinions that most of this town doesn't share, but it's not like I'm a fascist or a racist. There's nothing like that in my history.

I don't think Hollywood knows what to do with me. I would imagine that when it comes to romantic comedies, my name would be pretty low down on the list.

People have an idea that one is in control of a career, a lot more than you really are. You can engineer things to an extent. But you are at the mercy of what comes in across the desk.

My favorite meal would have to be good old-fashioned eggs, over easy, with bacon. Many others, but you can't beat that on a Sunday morning, especially with a cup of tea.

I like a cheese and pickle. Nice cheese and pickle on a real old-fashioned bread. Ploughman's lunch.

What other people think of me is none of my business.

I was brought up by my mother and my two sisters, although they're older than me and fled the nest very young, so I was technically raised as an only child, but I was very much loved.

I did have a knack for playing weirdos. There's still sort of this perception of me out there as being this crazy guy.

Rather like Batman, I embody the themes of the movie which are the values of family, courage and compassion and a sense of right and wrong, good and bad and justice.

Growing up in a particular neighborhood, growing up in a working-class family, not having much money, all of those things fire you and can give you an edge, can give you an anger.

I wanted to play Dracula because I wanted to say: 'I've crossed oceans of time to find you.' It was worth playing the role just to say that line.

Overall I enjoy a certain anonymity. I live a very normal, very ordinary life.

How many movies do you see when you can say this director really knew what film he wanted to make? I can count them on the fingers of one hand.

I like celluloid, I like film, I like the way that when a movie is projected it sort of breathes a little in the gate. That's the magic of it to me.

It's funny: I'm a lifelong musician, but because I principally play the piano it's been a solitary thing.

I grew up in Deptford in south London, and at that time I used to wear toppers, loon pants and tonic suits from shops like Take 6 and Topman. I was a bit of a soul boy, but I had a very eclectic taste in music - I was into James Brown and Bowie; and I was the only kid in the neighbourhood who would also be listening to Chopin.

Interesting things come your way but as you get older, your lifestyle changes. I don't want to travel; I don't want to be in a hotel room away from my family.

'Nil By Mouth' was a bit autobiographical, but as I always pointed out at the time, that's not my dad.

The building of America has had its fair share of mistakes, but it's a constitution that's the jewel of democracy, the envy of many, and it's the most generous nation in the world.

There's no handbook for parenting. So you walk a very fine line as a parent because you are civilizing these raw things. They will tip the coffee over and finger-paint on the table. At some point, you have to say, 'We're gonna have to clean that up because you don't paint with coffee on a table.'

We lived in a flat that you could pretty much fit in my current kitchen. No wonder people drink! I can't understand why they don't throw themselves off the balconies.

You can play older than yourself. You can play younger than yourself up to a point, and then that just becomes impossible because you carry a weight with you that you can't shift, unless you have very boyish looks.

I drank for about 25 years getting over the loss of my father and I took the anger out on myself. I did a good job at beating myself up at sometimes. I don't drink anymore but my alcoholic head occasionally says different. 'Nil By Mouth' was a love letter to my father because I needed to resolve some issues in order to be able to forgive him.

I had a guitar when I was 6 or 7, a plastic guitar with the Beatles' faces on it. It would be a collector's item now. It would fetch a hefty sum, I imagine.

Being an actor is a good way to earn a living. And to meet fabulous people. It's great to live very comfortably. I've been lucky, I've had a lot of fun with great roles, but it is true that if I were extremely rich, I would stop and I would go to play football on a beach in the Caribbean with my children.

I had what AA calls 'a convincer' - which made me realize that I couldn't do it any more. I went out drinking for about 70 hours here in London. At the end I knew I was done.

It's always hard when you're playing someone for a lot of people out there who are going to see the movie after reading the books. There's a communion between a reader and the writer, so people will have an idea who Sirius Black is and I might not be everyone's idea of that.

That's what sets apart one actor from another, and that you can't teach. You can't give someone that. When you're working, putting a character together, or in a scene, that's where things will happen that you have to have the intuition to notice them, and to register them.

But you see, I have played more good guys than I have played villains.

I never told my father I loved him before he died, and I have a lot of issues about that. They're all swimming around in my head, in my heart, unresolved, and in a way it felt fitting to dedicate the film to him.

I enjoy playing characters where the silence is loud.

I hadn't worked for a couple of years so I thought it would be nice to earn some money and pay the bills.

If one could have a wish, or an alternative life, I would've liked to have been John Lennon.

I was never really that interested in the punk movement. I was a blues guy: I liked Motown, James Brown.

Shakespeare doesn't really write subtext, you play the subtext.

I got obsessed with classical music, I got obsessed with Chopin, with playing the piano.

My big love was the Beatles. I was more into music.

Over the years, I have been asked to play these sort of scary frenetic characters that express their emotions physically.

I didn't do drugs. It wasn't my thing. But the drink was terrible. Today when I look back, it's like I was another person. You could call it a coping mechanism, but that would be an excuse. I just drank too much.

I don't go to premieres. I don't go to parties. I don't covet the Oscar. I don't want any of that. I don't go out. I just have dinner at home every night with my kids. Being famous, that's a whole other career. And I haven't got any energy for it.

And of course I've got kids of my own now, and they love me being in the Harry Potter films. I'm now part of a phenomenon. You become incredibly cool to your kids, and you get a young fan base. So you became the cool dad at school. You're suddenly hip.

At 23 it was all about acting. Today it's getting my kids to school, making sure that they've done their homework. I'm in my fifties, and I'm turning into a square.

On set I keep myself to myself; I'd rather the director speak up. I'm not gonna direct a younger actor. I think the power of example works best, actually.

The thing a drama school can't give you is instinct. It can sharpen instinct but that can't be taught, and you have to have intuition. It's an essential ingredient.

What's fascinating is that when you write a script, it's almost a stream of consciousness. You have an idea that it means something, but you're not always sure what. Then when you get on the set, the actors teach you.

When I decided that I might want to do acting for a living - I don't know where it really came from, since there was no school play or any of that - my mom gave me her blessing. I had to get a scholarship - that was the only way I could have gone to drama school.

So Harry Potter came in and it is nice that I have kids of the right age. I took them to London and they walked around the set and met Harry Potter and that is thrilling.

I wasn't ever a huge fan of comics. Just not one of those kids, you know?

I'm almost incapable of lying. I'd be a terrible spy.

I can't imagine childhood without 'Planet of the Apes.' I was nine or ten when the first one came out.

I still don't have a publicist. If I'm in a film, you have an obligation to promote it, I'll do as much as I can.

I'm rarely asked to play the smartest man in the room.

I'm still a member of the Empire! Although I sometimes feel like an American with a British accent - you get contaminated after so long.

Well, I needed the work - that's the honest answer. I haven't worked for a while, a couple of years. So I thought it would be nice to get back to work and earn some money.

As a drama student I got into Thirties and Forties suits.

I want my weekends off and I want to put my kids to bed. Those are good reasons to want to be in 'Batman 2'.

I have three kids who like Harry Potter so I was sort of aware of it. You can't really move from it: it's on buses, in stores, it's everywhere. One of my kids has read the books; the other two are too small but they like the movies.

I took a bit of a back seat, I had kids and I wanted to focus on them. There's that period in the late '90s, the early 2000s, where I didn't do a great deal.

When I directed, it was in a bubble, a creative bubble and I was very spoilt there. I'd like to do it again but it would have to be under my method.

To be honest, I'm a little tired of playing bad guys. I long to do a comedy. But it was fun knocking Indiana Jones around.

It's a shame about California, and particularly about L.A., where they've demolished so many landmarks. It's a bit of a disease there, where if anything is over 30 years old, they sort of knock it down and replace it. It's a strange town, it's this sprawling suburb, and then there's a city, the old town.

I don't see a great difference between someone sending a robot or a drone to bomb people and controlling it on a PlayStation from another country. It's thousands of miles away as opposed to someone in an airplane who is thousands of feet away releasing a bomb.

I think filmmaking should be a wonderfully free collaborative process, and it so very rarely is. I often see directors as jailers of my talent.

The script is your map of the world, isn't it? And if someone knows that if it's well-written, you get all of the beats, it will tell you everything you need to know.

Being a good director is knowing sometimes when not to say something.

Sometimes directors feel like they have to justify that hat that they are wearing they've got on as a director, and they come in and they tweak and interfere.

I went and lived in Chicago for a year , and I studied at the police academy.

One of my career ambitions was fulfilled working with John [Hurt]. I loved his work long before I ever had the idea of being an actor, so I was nervous to meet him. I was like a fanboy, like that annoying character on 'Saturday Night Live'. I'm sitting there. 'Do you remember when you were in 'Midnight Express'? Remember that scene you were in?' And he doesn't disappoint.

The great thing about having been in a lot of make-up, and stuff like that, is that when you're working with someone who's in it, and you've been there and done it, but you're not in it anymore, you feel so good.

The great thing about Google is that you type in neuro-surgery and somehow you end up with Peter Sellers or watching Frank Sinatra. Google is a great resource.

Political correctness has become a straightjacket.

When you play a character that is so emotionally closed there are times when you ask yourself if you are doing enough and if it's reading. That is where you have a director, who is the barometer of what you are doing.

People who know me , they know I have a sense of humor, I'm a bit of a joker, a bit of a clown really, and I would love someone to exploit that side of me and send me a romantic comedy.

I applaud anything that can take a kid away from a PlayStation or a Gameboy - that is a miracle in itself.

How do you remember all those lines? By forgetting everything else.

The industry has changed. Two years ago I could tell a company I've got Russell Crowe and that would get the film made. Now they'd ask 'And who's the girl?' Just one famous face isn't enough any more.

I tend to read non-fiction.

To be able to do this job in the first place you've got to have a bit of an ego.