Gary Oldman Quotes

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.

You always hope that the cloak of inspiration will fall, and you'll be O.K.

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

Political correctness has become a straightjacket.

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.

My passion and energy get mistaken for anger.

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

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

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

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.

It's been said that alcoholics are egomaniacs with low self -esteem. It's the prefect description. Being larger than life and yet your pride is crushed with self- loathing.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I know I'm pretty, but I ain't as pretty as a couple of titties.

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.

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.

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

The book tells you everything you need to know. The book is the map of the world that you're in with the character.

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 enjoy playing characters where the silence is loud.

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.

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.

I like these calm little moments before the storm, it reminds me of Beethoven

We're given a code to live our lives by. We don't always follow it, but it's still there.

At the Oscars, if you didn't vote for '12 Years a Slave' you were a racist.

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.

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 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.

As an actor, you people-watch, you observe. And the more famous you become, the sad thing is you lose the ability to do that. Instead of people-watching, you become the focus of attention.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

There are roles that you chase sometimes.

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

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