The Contender (2000)

Gary Oldman: Shelly Runyon

Photos 

Quotes 

• Shelly Runyon : Greatness is the orphan of urgency, Laine. Greatness only emerges when we need it most... in time of war or calamity. I can't ask somebody to be a Kennedy or a Lincoln. They were MEN created by their times. What I... What I can ask for... is the promise of greatness. And that, Madam Senator... you don't have.

  Laine Hanson : Well, then... I just wouldn't be using sex as leverage... if I were you, Sheldon. Because, you know, there's one thing you don't want. It's a woman with her finger on the button who isn't getting laid.

• Shelly Runyon : We're both sticking to our guns. The difference is, mine are loaded.

• Shelly Runyon : There's a reason they call me Honest Shell.

  President Jackson Evans : Irony, Shelly.

• Laine Hanson : It seems to me that all you can claim about me... claim, is that I had sex.

  Shelly Runyon : Deviant sex.

  Laine Hanson : Oh, deviant? Who says it was deviant?

  Shelly Runyon : I do. What I say the American people will believe. And do you know why? Because I will have a very big microphone in front of me.

• Shelly Runyon : So, how are Will and the boy?

  Laine Hanson : Let's forego the small talk today Shelly, I'm not in the mood.

  Shelly Runyon : Let the big talk begin.

• Shelly Runyon : Take a Magic Marker, cross out the word "objectivity". Your constituents want you for your opinions, your philosophy, for you subjectivity.

• Shelly Runyon : Mr. President.

  President Jackson Evans : Yes, Shelly?

  Shelly Runyon : You set me up.

  President Jackson Evans : Well, just this once.

• Shelly Runyon : Look me in the eyes and tell me that Laine Hanson is your first choice for the Vice Presidency.

  Kermit Newman : Laine Hanson is my absolute first choice.

  Shelly Runyon : I want someone like you in my poker game.