I was lousy in school. Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn't bother with the other kids. A really bad student. I didn't have any brains. I didn't know what I was doing there. That's why I became an actor.
— Anthony Hopkins
I'm fascinated by the fact that we can't grasp anything about time.
It's such a pleasant surprise when you come on set and you find someone in charge like Ken Branagh or James Ivory. You know that you're going to do a day's work and at the end of it, it's going to be good.
What I do is just go over and over and over my lines and learn the script so well that I can just be easy and relaxed. That's the way I always work.
A conductor can't be too arrogant with an orchestra and try to impose himself too much.
I'm married. My wife, Stella - a beautiful woman. She's brought a lot of peace to my life, a lot of wisdom.
I'm one of the slowest drivers on the road. I mosey along. If you're doing anything too fast, including living life too fast, that creates sudden death. If I have to be somewhere on time, I make sure I leave early enough.
I love life because what more is there?
Richard Burton came from the same town as me, so I thought I'd follow my nose, and follow my luck. I think I've been very lucky.
It was a challenge, to work with Oliver Stone.
I'm most suspicious of scripts that have a lot of stage direction at the top of the page... sunrise over the desert and masses of... a whole essay before you get to the dialogue.
I worked with Steven Spielberg on Amistad... he seemed so very secure in himself that he let me do things.
I never make conscious decisions.
I know that the arts are important. I'm not denying that, but I can't associate myself with all the claptrap that goes on around it.
I don't have people following me around, like bodyguards. I don't know how people live like that. Maybe the young movie stars have to live like that, I don't know. But it seems a little crazy to me. I don't think you need all that stuff.
And I love a scary movie. It makes your toes curl and it's not you going through it.
I am able to play monsters well. I understand monsters. I understand madmen.
If you do things, whether it's acting or music or painting, do it without fear - that's my philosophy. Because nobody can arrest you and put you in jail if you paint badly, so there's nothing to lose.
We all dream. We dream vividly, depending on our nature. Our existence is beyond our explanation, whether we believe in God or we have religion or we're atheist.
I like to take it easy.
I can't stand directors who try to micro-manage everything. When it happens these days I just walk off set, saying if they don't like the way I'm doing it they can get someone else.
I've been composing music all my life and if I'd been clever enough at school I would like to have gone to music college.
My life turned out to be beyond my greatest dreams.
The art of acting is not to act. Once you show them more, what you show them, in fact is bad acting.
Well, everyone likes movies when they're a little kid.
Oh yes. I'm an actor, so I just learn my lines, and show up and do it. I gave it a little bit of thought.
I've got a great sense of humor.
I'm always cast in these strange men... that's not me, really.
I worked with Lawrence Olivier some years ago. He was a great mentor.
I love roller coasters. I don't get a chance often, but I've gone to Magic Mountain and gone on the rides. I love roller coasters.
I have dual citizenship, it just so happens I live in America.
I came here in 1974 to do a play, and then I went to L.A. I really like living in America. I feel more at home here than anywhere else.
Actors I admire? Ed Harris, or course, I think he's terrific; because I know he always had to fight being what he looked like a lot, but I think he's a terrific actor.
I've got no need to prove to myself that I can do Shakespeare. I've done it.
The magical, supernatural force that is with us every second is time. We can't even comprehend it. It's such an illusion, it's such a strange thing.
I'm interested in the dream and subconscious mind, the peculiar dream-like quality of our lives, sometime nightmare quality of our lives.
I know that some actors and directors like to have intensity on set. I don't, particularly. Certainly, if they want that, that's fine, but I can't work like that.
Life's too short to deal with other people's insecurities.
My philosophy is: It's none of my business what people say of me and think of me.
In the theatre, people talk. Talk, talk until the cows come home about journeys of discovery and about what Hazlitt thought of a line of Shakespeare. I can't stand it.
This industry has been really good to me. It's been a great life. I'm not through yet. I'm ready when you are, Mr. DeMille.
We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Think. Think. Think. You can never trust the human mind anyway. It's a death trap.
My father was grounded, a very meat-and-potatoes man. He was a baker.
I'm the slowest driver in the world.
I would like to go back to Wales. I'm obsessed with my childhood and at least three times a week dream I am back there.
I think all those actors from that generation, like Bogart - they were wonderful actors. They didn't act. They just came on and they did it, and the characters were wonderful.
I like the good life too much, I'm not good at going on stage night after night and on wet Wednesday afternoons.
I don't know what acting is, but I enjoy it.
Every time I try to retire, or even think of retiring from acting, my agent comes up with a script.
I have no interest in Shakespeare and all that British nonsense... I just wanted to get famous and all the rest is hogwash.
