I've worked with people from Fred Zinnemann, John Huston, through to Richard Fleischer, all of those boys from Hollywood and so on, and Sam Peckinpah and then the Mike Radfords.
— John Hurt
I have died in so many spectacular ways, and I remember shooting them all, too. I imagine all those deaths will flash in front of me when I'm on my death bed, faced with the real thing.
I've never felt that anger is a very powerful emotion.
Early on, I didn't intend to have children. I thought it was too difficult a world for them. But then it happened, and I am thrilled to have them now.
I think fame makes people a bit nervous.
There are situations where you are left robbed of all quality of life, and I believe it is entirely up to you how you want to deal with that. You can follow the dictates of religion if that is what you believe in, or you can take a personal decision.
I didn't want to teach. I wanted to act. It was quite a long and difficult road to get there but very thrilling when I did.
Human beings are very good at adapting to what happens.
Acting is an imaginative exercise. It would be odd if you didn't try to identify with the roles you play, but I think I can differentiate between where my imagination is leading me and where I actually am.
I'm not accustomed to doing films without seeing the script.
You can see areas where maybe you got a bit lazy, perhaps, or you see when you were really on form. I think an actor is very like a sportsman in that respect. You have periods where you're in terrific form. Everything you touch seems to work and come right. And other times, when you're working really hard, it's okay, but it isn't scintillating.
Everything that came to me, in terms of the ritzier side of performing, was a plus.
For everything that you find dreadful, there's usually something that is rather marvelous as well.
The English National Opera does have some terrific productions, which are accessible, and they're not too ridiculously expensive.
I love the uilleann pipes and listen to Ronan Browne who's an uilleann piper.
You can't lose your concentration at all. And there are times when you're on the stage, and you've got silence, which is wonderful, but you have to have the confidence to make you realize it's fine. You can't suddenly wobble and think, 'They're not interested.'
Society is constantly recalibrating, redefining what it considers to be moral and immoral.
I've been incredibly lucky with the directors I've worked with.
I'd never done any Beckett before 'Krapp,' and I haven't done any of his other plays since. I've always felt that 'Krapp' is an autobiographical piece.
I don't care about the length of anything I play, as long as it's a good character.
I'm fascinated by the business of belief, obviously, because it's so ever present with humanity anyway. And, you know, when you have science, which constantly talks of proofs, you have religion, which constantly talks of beliefs and faith and so on.
I think people should be protected from being made to feel that they want to know what somebody famous had for breakfast.
I gave up religious thinking a long time ago and am really just an agnostic now.
I'm horribly self-critical.
Everyone I've ever played has been flawed.
I find it hard to imagine that anyone could be intimidated by me.
'The Naked Civil Servant' was as important for me as 'Easy Rider' was for Jack Nicholson. No question.
Life is full of ironies and paradoxes.
I'm somewhat old-fashioned, and I still talk about playing a part. I don't talk about my work - 'I've seen some of your work' - there's not much work in it, is there?
We're all just passing time and occupy our chair very briefly.
I'm not really a big musical fan. I enjoyed 'West Side Story' when it came out, but it gets a bit tired in the end.
I was completely crazy and mad when I was young. I was absolutely in love with the dissolute.
The difference between anger and deep remorse - remorse is much fatter. It's a deeper feeling altogether. Anger is too easy an escape for my money.
How my film career happened, I don't know. It was unplanned. I'd been in films and TV throughout the Sixties and early Seventies, but it was really 'The Naked Civil Servant' in 1975 that put me on the radar.
My surname certainly suggests a man whose destiny has always been injury.
I don't like it when people shout on stage without any particular reason. It carries no weight.
Not everyone wants to see children's films, comics, and supermen.
I've never changed the way I live. I still walk the streets; I don't give a damn. And everyone's very nice to me. But this new idea of being famous for no reason at all? I can't actually get my head round it.
I'd love to be one of those people who, whenever you see them, you feel pleased.
I have done quite a lot of outsider figures.
I've lived publicly and never hidden behind closed doors. Therefore, if I have gone over the top sometimes, it has been visible.
I see myself as an interpretative actor rather than a creative one.
Half the stuff I have done which has been successful would never have been made if it had been shown to focus groups.
Everybody's got to work with Roger Corman. You can't leave out that experience.
I knew I didn't want to pursue an academic career at all, which, of course, my father would have loved me to have done. I didn't want to go to university. The only other thing I could do was paint, and so I went to art school because they couldn't conceive of how one would be an actor.
Essentially, I am an actor for hire. I am not a rarified creature. I do all these different things, and they all interest me.
I've done a couple of conferences where you sit and sign autographs for people, and then you have photographs taken with them and a lot of them all dressed up in alien suits or 'Doctor Who' whatevers. I was terrified of doing it because I thought they'd all be loonies, but they are absolutely, totally charming as anything. It's great fun.
I seem to watch less and less television. The best thing in 'Downton Abbey' is Penelope Wilton. She is always worth the watch.
I'm essentially the result of other people's imagination. And that's fine. Because of other people's imagination, I've played parts I would never have thought I could do. Still, I've never had a hankering or an ambition for any particular role.
Religious people know deep down that that is the most vulnerable area of their lives, and when others question it, they are liable to hit out and feel insulted. You know it is absolutely without proof, yet people still commit themselves totally to this belief. They cannot refute it because it is so central to their lives.
