Quotes By Gary Oldman

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.

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

My passion and energy get mistaken for anger.

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.

I tend to read non-fiction.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

I enjoy playing characters where the silence is loud.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.