A screen actor is compensated in the knowledge that millions will see his performance at one time, where only hundreds will see it on the stage.
— Bela Lugosi
Circumstances made me the theatrical personality I am, which many people believe is also a part of my personal life.
I don't have a dime left. I am dependent on my friends for food and a small old-age pension.
I have never met a vampire personally, but I don't know what might happen tomorrow.
I never play without my cape.
I'll be truthful. The weekly paycheck is the most important thing to me.
If you are not serious, people will sense it.
In the studio the director controls the actor's every move, every inflection, every expression.
It took me years to live down Dracula and convince the film producers that I would play almost any other type of role.
Martyrdom was the price of enthusiasm for acting.
Of all the roles I've done on the stage, I'm partial to Cyrano de Bergerac.
The former ruling class kept the community of actors in ignorance by means of various lies.
The screen magnifies everything, even the way you are thinking.
There was no male vampire type in existence. Someone suggested an actor of the Continental School who could play any type, and mentioned me.
When a film company is in the red they come to me. Always it is the same.
You can't make people believe in you if you play a horror part with your tongue in your cheek.
Actors were exploited no less by the capitalist managers than they were by the state.
Death, the final, triumphant lover.
I enjoy my work. I haven't been an actor for 30 years without getting pleasure out of the profession.
I have played Dracula a thousand times on stage and I find I have become thoroughly settled in the technique of the stage and not of the screen.
I studied at the Budapest Academy of Theatrical Arts for four years and emerged with a degree.
I'll take any story if it's good.
In Hungary acting is a profession. In America it is a decision.
It is women who bear the race in bloody agony. Suffering is a kind of horror. Blood is a kind of horror. Women are born with horror in their very bloodstream. It is a biological thing.
It took several years of hard work in small roles before I attained stardom.
My body grew hot, then cold. I tried to eat the bed sheets. My heart beat madly. Every joint in my body ached. When I took the cure they took it all away from me.
People, chained by monotony, afraid to think, clinging to certainties... they live like ants.
The love-bite, it is the beginning. You will be irresistible.
The stage is near and dear to me.
To portray a maniac offers a compelling challenge.
Without movie parts I was reduced to freak status. I just couldn't stand it.
In making theories, always keep a window open so that you can throw one out if necessary.
Because of my language and the pantomime with which most Europeans accompany their speech, I was catalogued as a heavy.
Every actor is somewhat mad, or else he'd be a plumber or a bookkeeper or a salesman.
I have lived too completely, I think. I have known every human emotion.
I look in the mirror and say to myself, Can it be you once played Romeo?
I'd like to quit the supernatural roles and play just an interesting, down-to-earth person.
If my accent betrayed my foreign birth, it also stamped me as an enemy, in the imagination of the producers.
In Hungary, acting is a career for which one fits himself as earnestly as one studies for a degree in medicine, law, or philosophy.
It is women who love horror. Gloat over it. Feed on it. Are nourished by it. Shudder and cling and cry out-and come back for more.
It was hell to go through what I went through. I didn't know I had so many friends. Many people gave a damn about my situation. They helped cure me.
My close-up was magnificent!
The actor depends wholly on himself. He gives his performance in what, to him, seems the most effective manner.
The role seemed to demand that I keep myself worked up to fever pitch, so I took on the actual attributes of the horrible vampire, Dracula.
The vampire was a complete change from the usual romantic characters I was playing, but it was a success.
To win a woman, take her with you to see Dracula.
Women have a predestination to suffering.
I guess I'm pretty much of a lone wolf. I don't say I don't like people at all, but, to tell you the truth, I only like it then if I have a chance to look deep into their hearts and their minds.
