Gary Oldman Quotes
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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.
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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.
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My passion and energy get mistaken for anger.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I wasn't ever a huge fan of comics. Just not one of those kids, you know?
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As a drama student I got into Thirties and Forties suits.
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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.
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I can't imagine childhood without 'Planet of the Apes.' I was nine or ten when the first one came out.
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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.
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'Nil By Mouth' was a bit autobiographical, but as I always pointed out at the time, that's not my dad.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I tend to read non-fiction.
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I hadn't worked for a couple of years so I thought it would be nice to earn some money and pay the bills.
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I got obsessed with classical music, I got obsessed with Chopin, with playing the piano.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It's funny: I'm a lifelong musician, but because I principally play the piano it's been a solitary thing.
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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.
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Culturally, politically, everywhere you look... Read the newspaper. Go online. Our world has gone to hell.