I hate turbulence in life, but also on planes.
— Christopher Plummer
A lot of people want to retire; I couldn't. You don't retire in our business. What, play golf and watch television? Oh, please.
When I was young, I played the piano and studied classical music and jazz. I wanted to be a concert pianist, and if I'd devoted myself to it, I could have been. But it would have been too much work and a very lonely life.
I've done a lot of pictures that are ensemble, and I've not always liked the people I was working with, but that doesn't make any difference because you do the job, and often it turns out to be a great ensemble even if you didn't particularly really like anybody.
I think anger does fuel a successful acting career. To play the great roles, you have to learn how to blaze.
Simon Pegg is terribly talented, very funny, such a delicious sense of humour.
I was always a happy kid. I'd play the piano fairly well. I did all sorts of things fairly well. But who the hell wants to be happy all the time? It's a miserable state to be in permanently. Can you imagine how dreary that would be?
I think of being ornate as a Victorian quality, little to do with Shakespeare. But even Dickens wasn't ornate; he wrote with flow and naturalism.
I admire Ridley Scott, and I'm thrilled to be making a movie for him.
It is a culture voice, but it is a very American culture voice, and I am very used to English culture voice. So I had to work like hell to flatten those R's.
The part of Mike Wallace drew me to the movie because I thought, what an outrageous part to play.
The first time my father saw me in the flesh was on the stage, which is a bit weird. We went out to dinner, and he was charming and sweet, but I did all the talking.
Working with Julie Andrews is like getting hit over the head with a valentine.
I wasn't thrilled about 'The Sound Of Music' - not the movie itself but my role in it. Captain Von Trapp was a bore, and they tried to help by giving it a bit more cynicism, but it wasn't my favourite role. I enjoyed the music, and I loved Julie Andrews.
I'm insatiably ambitious.
I think a lot of directors over the years have cast me because they see something of another generation in me: you know, certain people look like they've come from the 19th century. Because I have classical background I suppose that is more suitable to patriarchal roles and easily infuses them.
I didn't have to keep a bloody journal. It's terribly boring keeping a journal anyway. I hate it. You spend more time writing down life instead of living it.
Most actors come from the streets, and their rise to fame is guided by a natural anger. It was harder to find that rage coming from a gentle background.
Some of the best casts I've ever worked with have been dogs.
In Montreal, when I grew up, I'd go to the Notre-Dame Basilica, a gorgeous cathedral in town. I'd listen to huge symphony orchestras, Pavarotti singing operas; that was absolutely marvelous. I like that aspect of the cathedral, the spectacle.
Oh, I don't have any religious beliefs.
I would rather not know about how one gets parts in movies these days.
Here is Mike Wallace, who is visible to the public, and I have been watching him since the early '50s. Smoking up a storm and insulting his guests and being absolutely wonderfully evil and charming too.
In Stratford you either turn into an alcoholic or you better write.
They realized I was alive again, even though I was playing an old, dying sop.
I was an only child, so I was very demanding. I enjoyed it thoroughly, but I wasn't very pleasant.
Never forget your sense of humour.
I love trying to give some flesh to rather naked bones sometimes. I've always felt it my duty and to try and bring on the character's off-stage life, what happened that is not revealed.
I thought, 'If I make 35, it'll be okay,' and then at 40, I got scared, and now that I'm 81, I'm scared to death.
My great-grandfather was prime minister of Canada, and I had a very Edwardian upbringing. It was a beautiful, romantic way of growing up, until the family lost its money. And I decided to be bad and rough and find the streets rather than the gates.
I actually was brought up by an Airedale. I don't really remember my parents, especially my mother. It was only the dog that I saw.
We used to listen to Lionel Barrymore do 'A Christmas Carol' on the radio long ago, and I like Reginald Owen, who played Scrooge in the first treatment for the screen. But my favorite Scrooge was Alastair Sim. He was enchanting, an absolutely beautiful performance.
I'm used to big roles and lots of words.
I couldn't believe when I first got a fan letter from Al Pacino, it was unreal.
Most of my life I have played a lot of famous people but most of them were dead so you have a poetic license.
I want to paint Montreal as a rather fantastic city, which it was, because nobody knows today what it was like. And I'm one of the last survivors, or rapidly becoming one.
I'm too old-fashioned to use a computer. I'm too old-fashioned to use a quill.
