Gary Oldman Quotes

I just play him as myself, I don't ease myself into any role really. I stick a beard on and play me.

With most British actors, it's amazing. I think they start with the character on the outside and work in.

Actors who say they can dive inside a character are either schizophrenic or lying.

I've always done method acting. I'm a method actor, and I've done that for years. I never did acting and decided to take it seriously because all the parts people want me to do were playing the pretty role. If I want to play someone pretty, I'll play myself.

I think I'm sort of method in a sense, and I enjoy, you know, trying to find that reality in fake emotion.

The actor's job is to put themselves in the shoes of the character they are trying to portray as truthfully as possible.

When you watch me on the screen, you should not be able to recognise me. If people say, you're a natural and an organic actor, that's an insult. If you're being yourself all the time on screen, that means you don't know how to act.

I never do roles, I play people.

I guess because I pay so much attention to the physical part of the character, I don't look upon it as like Charlize Theron up there. I don't think of them as like Charlize Theron films.

All my characters are me. I'm not a good enough actor to become a character. I hear about actors who become the role and I think 'I wonder what that feels like.' Because for me, they're all me.

Some actors get by with behaving, not acting. You've got to sell the effect. I act more in the 'Nightmare' movies because it's not like me. I'm acting, not reacting.

A lot of American actors I work with are in character all day long. You can't talk to them. It's Method and the whole thing.

What I find sometimes that is tricky is if actors are using too much of their own life in a picture, in a scene, they get locked into a particular way to play the scene, and it lacks an immediacy.

Yeah, I think the common denominator - and this is probably going to sound like Acting 101 - but the common denominator is belief in the character in the moment.

For me, acting is a series of impressions rather than trying to find one line through to the end, which risks becoming more of a presentation.

I guess every character has a little bit of the actor - I guess for every character you play, the actor has to allow a little bit of their own character to show through.

There are a lot of actors who will sit here and talk to you about characters - 'He does this, and she's a really interesting character because she does this.' I'm not like that at all. I'm not an actory actor.

The nuances and organic characteristics of a character become second nature if I'm doing my job well.

I don't believe actors who say they don't bleed into their characters. It's absolutely impossible not to.

I feel like my responsibility as an actor is to make characters as compelling and believable as possible.

Some actors can distance themselves from the parts they play, but I fall into the category who use bits of themselves.

In my experience, it's usually up to the actor how a character is portrayed.

I've never been a method actress; I've never been that person that wants to imagine horrible things happening in your own life in order to exploit them for your emotional being in the movie. I'm just not good at doing that.

Basically, I only play one character; I just play him at different volumes.

You have to be completely in the character, and that's so hard to do. That's why, when they call, 'Cut!,' you often feel yourself shift. Unless you're Daniel Day Lewis, who stays in character all the time, there's a switch that happens.