Gary Oldman Quotes


"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."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Film, Now, Old, Sales)

"I wasn't ever a huge fan of comics. Just not one of those kids, you know?"
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Kids)

"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."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: People, Actors, Being, Meeting, Want)

"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."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: People, Idea, Control, Career, Mercy)

"My big love was the Beatles. I was more into music."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Love, Music)

"But you see, I have played more good guys than I have played villains."
- Gary Oldman
"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."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: People, Idea, Books, Reading, Will, Writer)

"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."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Family, Travel, Want)

"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."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Science, Ships, Space)

"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."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Anger, Family, Money, Fire, Growing up)

"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."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Father, Heart, Film)

"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."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Movies, Books, Kids)

"I hadn't worked for a couple of years so I thought it would be nice to earn some money and pay the bills."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Money, Thought, Years)

"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."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Faces, Guitar, Now)

"I got obsessed with classical music, I got obsessed with Chopin, with playing the piano."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Music)

"I applaud anything that can take a kid away from a PlayStation or a Gameboy - that is a miracle in itself."
- Gary Oldman
"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."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Movies, Film)

"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."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Mother, Sisters)

"My passion and energy get mistaken for anger."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Anger, Energy, Passion)

"Wanting to be a good actor is not good enough. You must want to be a great actor. You just have to have that."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Actor, Want)

"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."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Family, Courage, Values, Compassion, Justice, Right, Sense, Wrong)

"Shakespeare doesn't really write subtext, you play the subtext."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Play, Shakespeare)

"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."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Age, Kids, London, Right)

"Speaking very generally, I find that women are spiritually, emotionally, and often physically stronger than men."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Men, Women)

"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."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Money, Work, Thought, Years)

"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."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Film, Trying)

"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."
- Gary Oldman
(Related: Idea, Actors, Consciousness)