A Quote by Gary Oldman

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.
But you know, there's something about the kids finishing their homework in a given day, working one-on-one, getting all this attention - they go home, they're finished. They don't stall, they don't do their homework in front of the TV.
It's an ongoing process, in the script, on the set and in the editing room, to make sure you are being true to the emotion of the film without turning it into a melodrama, and making sure you're getting all the laughs you can without it turning into just some stupid comedy.
Turning pot handles the other way around on the stove, making sure you talk with your family and kids directly about fire safety and about kitchen safety, keeping your tree at least three feet from a heater or any kind of lights or flames, making sure that candles aren't left unattended. It's all things that we should know and we think about initially, but during the holidays, in the commotion it seems to get kind of lost.
My mother has been my mentor in my life. The number one attribute was discipline. To be on time to school, never miss a day at school, and then checking out homework and making sure I was doing it correctly and signing me up for lots of activities, extra tests and classes.
People don't remember that during the Fifties and Sixties there was a Cold War, and kids were getting under their desks during school because they thought they were going to get bombed. So it wasn't really that ideal at all.
I talk about acting to students making the transition from high school to UCLA. Kids going into this profession really need to know the reality of it.
At one point, my house was a school for autistic children. I opened up my doors to about 30 kids and their families at the time. I was turning into Mary Poppins because I had to do something for these kids who have nowhere to go. So my house was the school for two years.
I think that a lot of kids today focus on impressing each other. And while that's really nice, you also have to think about your future, about getting into a good school.
To me, it's so much about doing your homework, going into a situation, getting to know the subject, making them feel comfortable, getting intimate access, getting access to all different aspects of people's lives, so that I am essentially telling an entire story and not just a single one.
I was an anxious kid. I worried about getting homework finished, even back when homework didn't count for anything.
My parents were very firm about me always getting my homework done.
To me, it's so much about doing your homework, going into a situation, getting to know the subject, making them feel comfortable, getting intimate access, getting access to all different aspects of people's lives so that I am essentially telling an entire story and not just a single image.
I'd done two years' worth of extra work, and all my friends who I would go on auditions with went to school for acting. These were kids who knew when they were 14 years old that this was what they wanted to do with their lives, and they prepared for it, and they're getting canned at every audition.
Acting is not about competing. Acting is about cooperating. Acting is about collaboration. It's about your utility, your usefulness, your capacity to add to the work that has already been done and will be done. You're just part of a team. I never feel competitive about acting.
Kids today learn a lot about getting to the moon, but very little about getting to heaven.
My priorities are really about creating balance in my home, making sure that I have enough time with my kids, making sure that I have the time to do the things that I want to do with my career, and to continue to make movies.
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