Gary Oldman

“I wasn't ever a huge fan of comics. Just not one of those kids, you know?”

“Political correctness has become a straightjacket.”

“I tend to read non-fiction.”

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

“My big love was the Beatles. I was more into music.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I enjoy playing characters where the silence is loud.”

“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.”

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

“I'm still a member of the Empire! Although I sometimes feel like an American with a British accent - you get contaminated after so long.”

“My favorite meal would have to be good old-fashioned eggs, over easy, with bacon. Many others, but you can't beat that on a Sunday morning, especially with a cup of tea.”

“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.”

“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.”

“At the Oscars, if you didn't vote for '12 Years a Slave,' you were a racist. You have to be very careful about what you say. I do have particular views and opinions that most of this town doesn't share, but it's not like I'm a fascist or a racist. There's nothing like that in my history.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”