Gary Oldman Quotes
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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.
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But you see, I have played more good guys than I have played villains.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I was never really that interested in the punk movement. I was a blues guy: I liked Motown, James Brown.
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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.
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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.
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I just think political correctness is crap.
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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.
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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.
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Shakespeare doesn't really write subtext, you play the subtext.
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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.
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What other people think of me is none of my business.
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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.
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I applaud anything that can take a kid away from a PlayStation or a Gameboy. That is a miracle in itself.
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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...'
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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.
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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.
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Reality TV to me is the museum of social decay.
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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.
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I did have a knack for playing weirdos. There's still sort of this perception of me out there as being this crazy guy.
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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.
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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.