Quotes from Gary Oldman

I just think political correctness is crap.

Culturally, politically, everywhere you look... Read the newspaper. Go online. Our world has gone to hell.

I hadn't worked for a couple of years so I thought it would be nice to earn some money and pay the bills.

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 want my weekends off and I want to put my kids to bed. Those are good reasons to want to be in 'Batman 2'.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Overall I enjoy a certain anonymity. I live a very normal, very ordinary life.

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.

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.

I tend to read non-fiction.

I didn't do drugs. It wasn't my thing. But the drink was terrible. Today when I look back, it's like I was another person. You could call it a coping mechanism, but that would be an excuse. I just drank too much.

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

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.

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

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.

What other people think of me is none of my business.

As a drama student I got into Thirties and Forties suits.

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.

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.

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