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I Wanted To Be A Musician. I Just Wanted To Be Famous Because I Wanted To Escape From What I Felt Was My Limitation In Life... And I Wanted To Write Music, And I Didn’t Know What I Was Doing And I Never Had The Technique Or Understanding Of It... But I’ve Always Played The Piano And I Can Improvise On The Piano, But The Problem Is That I Can’t Write Down What I Write. I Can Read Music But I Can’t Write Numbers.

-Anthony Hopkins

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I Wanted To Be

Anthony Hopkins

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I Wanted To Be A Musician. I Just Wanted To Be Famous Because I Wanted To Escape From What I Felt Was My Limitation In Life... And I Wanted To Write Music, And I Didn’t Know What I Was Doing And I Never Had The Technique Or Understanding Of It... But I’ve Always Played The Piano And I Can Improvise On The Piano, But The Problem Is That I Can’t Write Down What I Write. I Can Read Music But I Can’t Write Numbers.

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My Father Wasn't A Cruel Man. And I Loved Him. But He Was A Pretty Tough Character. His Own Father Was Even Tougher - One Of Those Victorians, Hard As Iron - But My Dad Was Tough Enough.

I've Always Liked To Be A Meat And Potatoes Kind Of Actor Who Doesn't Believe In Any Of The Highfalutin Stuff About Acting, So I Tend To Be A Little Bit More Cynical.

I Do My Job, And I Do What I’m Paid To Do And I’m Always Prepared. I Prepare By Learning The Text So Well That When I Show Up, I’m Relaxed And The Performance Sort Of Happens. Now Whether That’s Good Or Bad, I Don’t Know... Whatever I Say Is Going To Sound Very Egocentric And Self Centered Anyway So I’d Better Shut Up.

I Like The Good Life Too Much, I'm Not Good At Going On Stage Night After Night And On Wet Wednesday Afternoons.

No Expectations. Ask Nothing, Expect Nothing And Accept Everything, And Life Is Very Well.

I Just Learn My Lines, Go On Set. Do My Preparation, Whatever That Is. Have A Cup Of Coffee. Say Hello To Everyone. And Be Friendly. "action" - And Then Do It.

Women Never Really Care To Face The Truth When Their Hearts Are Involved.

I Couldn't Say I Ever Dreamt Of Becoming A Composer, A Pianist, Or Anything Else For That Matter. I Have The Kind Of Brain Where Nothing Is Set In Stone.

I Watched A Film With A Very Famous, Great, Great Actor, I Won't Mention His Name Because Everyone Loves His Memory, But I Thought, "god He Was Acting A Lot." Great Actor, But Nonstop Acting. Wall To Wall, Fitted-carpet Acting.

I Still Don't Know What The Film Was About Because All I Remember Is A Whole Lot Of Technical Dialogue About A Body In A Suitcase.

People Ask, 'should I Call You Sir Hopkins?' But I Say, 'no. Call Me Tony,' Because It's Too Much Of A Lift-up.

I Thought I Did Play One Villain, Hitler, [who Is] Like Lecter In Some Ways, But He's A Mythical Figure, Anyway.

Keep Low Expectations And Life Gets Pretty Good.

Low Expectations

I Just Wanted To Be A Composer; I Became An Actor By Default, Really. I Got A Scholarship To A College Of Music And Drama, Hoping To Take A Scholarship In Music. But I Ended Up As An Acting Student, So I've Stuck With That For The Last 50-odd Years.

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.

Pleasant Surprises

Acting Is A Creative Process, And Directing And Music. I Think Creative People - And I Take Myself As A Creative Person And It Doesn't Mean You Have To Be An Actor, A Musician, Or A Painter - But I Think If You Are In A Creative Profession Or A Creative Business You Do Have A Heightened Awareness.

It's Very Difficult To Liberate Yourself From What You've Learned. You Know It's Almost Impossible Because You Learn In Order To Survive.

The Reward Is In The Doing Of It.

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'm Having A Great Life. And I'm 73 And They Still Phone Me Up And Ask Me To Do A Job Here And There.

When You're Younger You Have So Many Ideas About Yourself; Everything Is Important. It's Not When You Look Back, Nothing Is That Important. It's Only Life.

I Never Cling On To Hope Or Certainty. They're The Enemies Of Peace.

I Always Distrust The Word Art When It Is Applied To Acting.

I'll Do Anything To Keep Everyone Laughing. Things Get Too Intense On Film Sets. I Remember On The Elephant Man, I Used To Imitate A Cat Without Moving My Lips. David Lynch Would Say, "cut! Sorry, We've Got A Noise Somewhere On Set." Everyone Would Be Looking Around For This Cat.

I Have No Education, I Have No Academic Background In Painting Or In Music, But I Write Music And I Compose Music And I Write And I Sell Paintings, And My Rule Is, Well, They Can't Arrest Me.

I Think One Of The Things You Have To Have Is A Respect For The Camera, A Real Respect, And A Real Love For It, And To Really, When I Say Take It Seriously, Quote 'seriously', I Mean Not Patronize It. It's A Big Mistake To Patronize It And Think It's A Third Rate Medium, Because It's Not, It's A Great Art Form.

I Am Not Very Good With Relationships. With Anyone. I Can't Be Locked Up With Anyone For Too Long.

I'm Always Cast In These Strange Men... That's Not Me, Really.

Acting's Entertainment. It's Not Brain Surgery.

I Think Julianne Moore Is Very, Very Good. I've Worked With Her. We Did Surviving Picasso. I Remember One Scene We Did Together. She Had To Have A Nervous, A Mental, Breakdown In This One Scene. I Didn't Have Many Lines. I Just Had To Make Sure I Knew I Came In On Cue All Right. And I Was Just Watching Her Walking Though The Rehearsal. I Thought I Know What She's Doing, "this Is Going To Be Terrific." So They Said, "are You Ready" And She Said, "yeah," "ok, Roll The Camera." And All In One Take.

We're Just Blades Of Grass, And When We Go, We Go, We Never Come Back; One Life . . . Maybe That's True. But I Tend To Believe That This Is Not All There Is. Because My Life Has Been Like A Shadow Of Something Deeper. And I've Experienced That Many Times.

Blades Of Grass

My Life Turned Out To Be Beyond My Greatest Dreams.

Acting Is Constricted Because You Have The Lines. But I Improvise With It And What I Learn On The Set. I Improvise Rhythms And Just Changes.

I Don't Have Many Friends; I'm Very Much A Loner. As A Child I Was Very Isolated And I've Never Been Really Close To Anyone.

Jonathan Demme Is A Very Sharp Editor Of His Movies.

I Have Dual Citizenship, It Just So Happens I Live In America.

I Don't Know What Acting Is, But I Enjoy It. I Think We Ask Too Many Questions Of Ourselves. We Make Too Much Importance Of Stuff. But I Do Say To Actors When I Have Taught In Classes, Or When I Sometimes Do A Talk To A Group. I'll Say, “if I Never Acted Again, The World Wouldn't Stop, Nor Would It Stop If I Didn't Stop Acting. That's How Important It Is. I Know It [seems] Important When You're Young. But I Say, “lighten Up. Don't Take It All So Seriously.” All The Gurus And Teachers Will Take Your Money And Run.

I Am Able To Play Monsters Well. I Understand Monsters. I Understand Madmen.

People Don't Always Tell You What They Are Thinking. They Just See To It That You Don't Advance In Life.

I Love To Read, And So I've Been Reading Everything I Can, Not Intensely, But I Love To Read So I Read "origin Of Species" By Darwin And I Can't Make Head Or Tail Of E=mc Squared By Einstein, But I Try To Baffle My Way Through That.

My Life Has Been A Kind Of Mystery To Me. By All My Logical, Linear Thinking I Started Out In School As A Little Boy, I Didn't Have A Clue About Anything. What They Were Talking About In School, Couldn't Play Sports, Couldn't Learn, And I Was Bottom Of The Class.

It Created In Me A Yearning For All That Is Wide And Open And Expansive. Something That Will Never Allow Me To Fit In In My Own Country, With Its Narrow Towns And Narrow Roads And Narrow Kindnesses And Narrow Reprimands.

I Worked With Steven Spielberg On Amistad... He Seemed So Very Secure In Himself That He Let Me Do Things.

I’m Not Being Cynical, But When You’re Doing A Movie You Have A Number Of Choices As An Actor. Then You See It All Cut Together And All Of Those Precious Little Pieces You Put In Are Maybe On The Cutting Room Floor. So, You Don’t Have That Much Control. You Have Very Little Control, In Fact.

A Conductor Can't Be Too Arrogant With An Orchestra And Try To Impose Himself Too Much.

And I Love A Scary Movie. It Makes Your Toes Curl And It's Not You Going Through It.

Relish Everything That's Inside Of You, The Imperfections, The Darkness, The Richness And Light And Everything. And That Makes For A Full Life.

Richness Of Life

I Come From - I Came From Wales, And It's A Strong, Butch Society. We Were In The War And All That. People Didn't Waste Time Feeling Sorry For Themselves. You Had To Get On With It. So My Credo Is Get On With It. I Don't Waste Time Being Soft. I'm Not Cold, But I Don't Like Being, Wasting My Time With - Life's Too Short.

Most Of My Last 30 Years Have Been Like That. Results And Manifestations Of Things I'd Dreamed Of As A Young Kid And Wanted As A Child And As A Young Man. I Realized It Maybe 30 Years Ago. I Thought, "this Is Unreal. This Has Happened As I Expected It To, As I'd Pictured It." My Whole Life Has Been Like That And I'm Fascinated By That Power That We All Have. That We Create Our Lives As We Go.

Years Ago I Met Richard Burton In Port Talbot, My Home Town, And Afterwards He Passed In His Car With His Wife, And I Thought, 'i Want To Get Out And Become Like Him'. Not Because Of Wales, Because I Love Wales, But Because I Was So Limited As A Child At School And So Bereft And Lonely, And I Thought Becoming An Actor Would Do That.

There Is Nothing To Be Scared Of In Movies. It's A Bit Scarier Going On Stage.

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.

When I Direct I Try To Keep It A Unique Design Of My Own. Naturally You're Influenced.

I Have A Punishing Workout Regimen. Every Day I Do 3 Minutes On A Treadmill, Then I Lie Down, Drink A Glass Of Vodka And Smoke A Cigarette.

Hitchcock Was Such A Master Of Putting On Screen Things That Made You Uneasy. Somebody Once Asked Him What Frightened Him Most, And He Said The Police. He Came From A Poor Background. I Think He Understood Those Fears.

I'm Married. My Wife, Stella - A Beautiful Woman. She's Brought A Lot Of Peace To My Life, A Lot Of Wisdom.

You Have To Have Humor. If You Don't Have Humor And You Take Yourself Seriously, You're Dead In The Water. You Have To Be Jostled. I Love It. You've Gotta Have A Laugh. It's Better Than Working For A Living.

Working For A Living

I Love To Have A Laugh. I Like To Tease People.

What A Glorious Night. Every Face I See Is A Memory. It May Not Be A Perfectly Perfect Memory. Sometimes We Had Our Ups And Downs. But We're All Together And You're Mine For A Night. And I'm Going To Break Precedent And Tell You My One-candle Wish...that You Would Have A Life As Lucky As Mine, Where You Can Wake Up One Morning And Say, 'i Don't Want Anything More'. Sixty-five Years. Don't They Go By In A Blink?

I'm Not A Health Freak. I Just Work Out Every Day.

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.

Things Have Changed So Much Now. Everything Is Downloaded Onto Computers. I'm Not A Computer-savvy Guy, But With Downloading The Movie Industry Has Changed.

I Used To Be A Bit Obsessed By Acting But Not Anymore. I Do Enjoy Acting But I Probably Enjoy It More Now Because It's Easier. I Can't Work In The Theater Because To Me It's Too Serious. It's Like Being In Prison For Me. I Admire People That Can Do That But I Can't Do It. I'd Rather Live My Life And Do A Bit Of Acting In Between.

I Found A Way Into The Acting Business Because I Thought, Well, It Beats Working For A Living, And So That's What I Do. But I Still Feel Like A Bit Of A Stranger In It All. I've Never Really Belonged Anywhere.

Once You Begin To Fall Off The Track And Believe You Breathe Different Air To Everyone Else, You're Doomed; You're Finished.

I'm The Slowest Driver In The World.

I Am Young! Being Creative And Keeping Your Brain Occupied Is Very Sensible Because If You Don't You Die, Slowly.

For Me, Time Is The Greatest Mystery Of All. The Fact Is That We're Dreaming All The Time. That's What Really Gets Me. We Have A Fathomless Lake Of Unconsciousness Just Beneath Our Skulls.

That's What Happens If You Don't Address The Darkness In You. You Become Repressed And Depressed And Suicidal.

I Don't Push My Luck. I Don't Worry About The Results And Therefore Everything Seems To Work Out Well. That's Something I've Learnt Over The Years. The Whole Thing About The Acting Business Is That It's A Hit-or-miss Game So I Keep My Distance From It.

We Are Fascinated By The Darkness In Ourselves, We Are Fascinated By The Shadow, We Are Fascinated By The Bogeyman.

I Don't Mind Being A Commodity. It's Given Me A Good Life.

I Don't Like Mushiness. I'm A Very Emotional Person But I Hate Sentimentality. I Don't Like Great Demonstrations Of Emotion. But As I'm Getting Older, I'm Getting Much More Open About All That.

You Look Closely Enough, You'll Find That Everything Has A Weak Spot Where It Can Break, Sooner Or Later.

I Worked At The Steel Company Of Wales When I Was 17. My Job Was To Supply Tools To The Guys Working The Blast Furnaces.

By Giving Up 'the Need' And 'the Want', Things Begin To Happen For You

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.

Supernatural Forces

The Art Of Acting Is Not To Act. Once You Show Them More, What You Show Them, In Fact Is Bad Acting.

Non-expectation And Acceptance. Because Expectation Leads To Resentment And Depression, So I Have No Expectations.

I Remember Coming To New York, In 1974 To Do A Play Here Called Equis. And I Remember The First Morning Getting Up And Walking Around The Streets And I Thought, "i'm Home." I Felt Really At Peace Here.

As A Welshman That Can't Sing, I Never Feel More Proud To Be Welsh Than When I Hear The Treorchy Male Choir - The Master Choir Of Them All. If I Could Sing I Would Apply For Membership Myself.

I've Got A Great Sense Of Humor.

The Knighthood Was A Tremendous Honour, I Don't Dismiss It. But I Feel Embarrassed By The Flowery, Theatrical Stuff That Goes With Being An Actor.

I Don't Know What Acting Is, But I Enjoy It.

I Enjoy Painting. I Don't Know If I'm Good At It, But I Paint. I Paint Very Quickly.

I'm Fascinated By The Fact That We Can't Grasp Anything About Time.

How Do You Play Hannibal Lector? Well Just Don't Move. Scare People By Being Still.

It Was A Challenge, To Work With Oliver Stone.

My Father Was Grounded, A Very Meat-and-potatoes Man. He Was A Baker.

I Look In The Mirror And I See The Lines, But I Don't Care. It's A Good Time. I Don't Know Why It's Such A Good Time, But It's A Good Time.

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.

Working With Katherine Hepburn, She Said To Me, "don't Act." She Said, "read The Lines. Just Be. Just Speak The Lines." I Said, "okay." She Said, "you Look Good. You Got A Good Pair Of Shoulders, You Got A Good Head, Good Face."

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.

People Ask Me How Did You Choose The Part And How Did You Prepare For This Work? I Just Learned The Lines And Showed Up; I Don't Know What Else To Say Because That's All I Know How To Do.

Acting Is About Listening And Reacting. John Wayne Was Right: Acting Is Just Reacting. You Don't Have To Do Much - As Long As You Stay Out Of The Way Of Others. That's Why It Works.

I Visualized A Lot Of Things Happening To Me, Because I Was A Lonely Kid Because I Didn't Understand Anything About School.

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've Got No Need To Prove To Myself That I Can Do Shakespeare. I've Done It.

Mortality Is The Great Rescuer, It Finally Takes You Out Of Everything, And That Makes Life Good.read Carl Jung. It Makes Life Richer Because This Is It; None Of Us Know Where We Go And This Is The Fun Of It.

If You're In A Successful Play And The Play Is Working Well - I Mean Successful Because The Audiences Like It, The Audiences Respond Well - It's A Pleasure.

I Play Music - I Write My Own Music, But I Play Music, Just Background Music Really, And Just Let It Happen.

I Was Called 'dumbo,' Like The Elephant, As A Child Because I Couldn't Understand Things At School.

I Don't Waste Time Being Soft. I'm Not Cold, But I Don't Like Being, Wasting My Time With-life's Too Short.

On His Hannibal Lector Mask: I've Got It At Home. I Wear It To Bed Every Night.

I'm Devious, Cruel, Cunning And Addictive.

If You’re An Alcoholic Or A Drug Addict, We Flirt With Death. We Pull Ourselves To The Brink Of Destruction And If We’re Lucky We Pull Ourselves Back. We All Have That In Us.

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.

Oh, The Truth, Oh Yeah, Lot Of Trouble That Got Us Into, Didn't It, Over The Last Maybe Thousand Years? Hitler Knew The Truth, So Did Stalin, So Did Mao Zedong, So Did The Inquisition. They All Knew The Truth And That Caused Such Horror. Certainty Is The Enemy.

Multiply It By Infinity And Take It To The Depths Of Forever, And You Will Still Have Barely A Glimpse Of What I'm Talking About.

I Don't Want To Be Anything Else Other Than What I Am. I Can Say That With Passion. No Regrets.

I Know How To Be Strong. I Know How To Be Ruthless. It's Part Of My Nature. I Wouldn't Be An Actor If I Wasn't.

Certainty Is The Enemy Of Mankind. If You're Certain About Everything, You Have The Inquisition, You Have Nazis And You Have - That Certainty Is Something To Be Guarded About.

I Worked With Lawrence Olivier Some Years Ago. He Was A Great Mentor.

I Think The First British Actor Who Really Worked Well In Cinema Was Albert Finney. He Was A Back-street Marlon Brando. He Brought A Great Wittiness And Power To The Screen. The Best Actor We've Had.

There's Many A Good Tune Played By An Old Banjo.

I've Been Very Lucky. I've Had My Problems In The Past, I've Had My Troubles, But You Move On. I Had A Great Life And I Am Really Thankful For It.

I Hate Taxing My Mind With Analysis. I'm Not A Good Analyst. I Cannot Talk About Acting. I Hate Talking About It. I Hate Talking About Analyzing.

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.

When You Begin To Believe You Have License Because You Are A Special Person Breathing Special Oxygen, That's When You're In Big Trouble. That's The Road To Insanity. And A Lot Of People In The Studios Are Like That. They Believe That They Are Special. I Do Think Actors Are Blessed, Or Cursed, With Maybe A Slightly Heightened Awareness, Which You Have To Use.

I Wanted Revenge; I Wanted To Dance On The Graves Of A Few People Who Made Me Unhappy. It's A Pretty Infantile Way To Go Through Life - I'll Show Them - But I've Done It, And I've Got More Than I Ever Dreamed Of.

I've Always Liked American Actors Particularly. Because That Was My First Impression. I Was Very Enamoured Of America When I Was A Kid Because We Were Surrounded By American Soldiers During The War, The Accent Was Very Strange To Me, It Was Very Exotic And Very Captivating.

I’m Not Young Anymore. I Don’t Wanna Start Over Again.

When I Was A Younger Actor, I Was Very Immersed In It, Very "method" And All That. Now, I Don't Give A Hoot.

I Think The Healthy Way To Live Is To Make Friends With The Beast Inside Oneself, And That Means Not The Beast But The Shadow. The Dark Side Of One's Nature. Have Fun With It And You Know, Is To Accept Everything About Ourselves.

Once You Accept The Fact That There's Nothing To Fear, You Drill Into The Primal Oil Well. I Believe When We Do Things Without Fear, We Can Do Anything. As Long As You Don't Worry About The Consequences.

We're All Different. Some People Are Musicians, Some People Are Actors, Some People Are Agents And Some People Are Accountants... We're All Different.

There's A Thing That If You - Somebody In Faith Is Always Troubled By Doubt, And Somebody By Doubt Is Always Wanted By Faith. So It's A Kind Of Paradox.

The Movie Industry Is Full Of Crazy People Who Think That They Are God.

When People Call Me Sir Anthony I Just Think Oh, That's A Bit Odd. But I'm Not Cynical About It. Um, I Just Feel More Comfortable Being Called Tony Or Mr. Hopkins, Whatever Name I'm Called.

I Never Make Conscious Decisions. If My Agent Says To Me, "it's A Good Script," I'll Do It. I Don't Plan. I've Got A Lot Of Things To Do. I'm At The Roulette Table And My Luck Seems To Be Running At The Moment. I Might As Well Stay There Until It Runs Out.

Guilt Is The Thief Of Life.

I Spent Two Years In The Military Service, Then I Trudged Around In Repertory For Quite A While. I Somehow Wound Up At The National Theatre, Though, And Then I Was Definitely On My Way.

Beware The Tyranny Of The Weak. They Just Suck You Dry.

Some Nights You Might Go Through An Entire Performance And Not Feel A Thing, And The Audience May Have A Much Better Time, 'cause If You're Enjoying Yourself On Stage Too Much, They're Having A Terrible Time Because They Can't Hear You. And If You're A Woman Your Mascara's Running.

I've Played A Lot Of Parts. But I Don't Look At My Feeling Is That This Is A Job. It's Given Me A Good Living.

Danger Is The Spice Of Life And You’ve Got To Take A Risk Now And Then…that’s What Makes Life Worthwhile.

Israel Means War And Destruction And We Americans Are Behind This War And I Am Ashamed Of Being American.

I've Reached A Happy Stage In My Life - You Can Call It "happy" - But I Have No Expectations Anymore. I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore.

The Whole Point Of Courage, To Overcome Your Fear. That's The Interesting Thing, When Courage Bleeds Through The Fear.

Interesting Things

I'm Just An Actor. It's The Way The Script Is Written, And It's Easy. I Don't Have Think About It. When You Receive The Script, You Know Pretty Well How To Play It, Apart From Little Technicalities Like The Accent.

I've Felt Like An Outsider All My Life. It Comes From My Mother, Who Always Felt Like An Outsider In My Father's Family. She Was A Powerful Woman, And She Motivated My Father.

A Census Taker Once Tried To Test Me. I Ate His Liver With Some Fava Beans And A Nice Chianti.

I Don't Have Any Expectations About My Films. If They're Good, They're Good - If They're Not, They're Not. About 10 Years Ago, I Remember Going To See One Of My Movies - I Can't Even Remember Which One Now - And Everyone Was Jumping Up And Down, Getting Excited, Saying What A Great Film It Was Going To Be. We All Went In And Watched It, And It Was The Slowest Movie I've Ever Seen. The Next Day, The Reviews Were Terrible And Half The Studio Was Fired.

I Believe I Am Quite Amiable And Affable And Quite Fair, And I've Rarely Worked With People Who Are The Opposite. Moodiness Scares Me. What Gets To Me Is Unkindness. Madness. Unwarranted Cruelty Through Words. People Who Scream And Shout At Work. I Hate Confrontation And Violence. I've Done It In The Past And I Don't Want To Do It Again. I Guess I Want A Perfect World.

My Philosophy Is: It's None Of My Business What People Say Of Me And Think Of Me. I Am What I Am, And I Do What I Do. I Expect Nothing And Accept Everything. And It Makes Life So Much Easier.

Acting Is Just A Process Of Relaxation, Actually. Knowing The Text So Well And Trusting That The Instinct And The Subconscious Mind, Whatever You Want To Call It, Is Going To Take Over.

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.

We Have A Boesendorfer Piano That I Play Every Day. It Keeps My Brain And My Fingers Active.

There Are People Who Are Convinced Supernatural Forces Are At Work, But I've No Idea. I Suspect 'possession' Might Be A Psychological Thing, Like Schizophrenia. We All Think We Know Things, But We Don't Know A Damn Thing. Whether God Exists, Why We're Here... Nobody Really Knows Any Of It.

Supernatural Forces

When You're Young, You're Very Insecure. And If I Could Learn, If I Could Revisit My Own Past I Could Say To Myself, Don't Think Too Much, Just Get On And Do It.

Whether It's Overeating Or It's Overworking Or Over-sex Or Whatever It Is, Alcoholism, Drug Addition, We Push Ourselves To The Brink And Then Pull Back Because It's Kind Of Exciting.

When You Are At The Right Age To Play Hamlet You Are Still To Young And Immature To Play It. It Is Much Later, When You Get The Life Experience And The Emotional Power, That You Understand Hamlet Or Macbeth.

You Still Wake Up Sometimes. You Wake Up In The Dark And Hear The Screaming Of The Lambs.

If I Spent All My Time Criticising Myself, I Wouldn't Be Able To Function. There Are Actors Who Theorise Till The Cows Come Home. I Haven't The Patience For Them. It's Maybe Shallow, But That's Why I'll Never Be Part Of The Acting Set.

I Always Liked To Take The Plunge, You Know, I'd Jump In At The Deep End And Hope That I'd Find Land Somehow, Or Hope I'd Float Or Survive. That's More Or Less The Way I've Gone Through My Life.

We're All Caught Up In Circumstances, And We're All Good And Evil. When You're Really Hungry, For Instance, You'll Do Anything To Survive. I Think The Most Evil Thing - Well, Maybe That's Too Strong - But Certainly A Very Evil Thing Is Judgment, The Sin Of Ignorance.

When I Was A Young Guy, I Knew Everything. Now I Know Very Little. I Know Less And Less As The Time Goes On.

I Drank A Lot, But I Wouldn't Have Missed It. I Look Back On It As Sort Of Dreary Enjoyment, Because I Don't Have To Be There Anymore.

I Wanted To Be A Musician But I Didn't Have The Talent For It, So I Decided I Wanted To Be Famous, So I Became An Actor.

I Wanted To Be A Musician. I Just Wanted To Be Famous Because I Wanted To Escape From What I Felt Was My Limitation In Life... And I Wanted To Write Music, And I Didn’t Know What I Was Doing And I Never Had The Technique Or Understanding Of It... But I’ve Always Played The Piano And I Can Improvise On The Piano, But The Problem Is That I Can’t Write Down What I Write. I Can Read Music But I Can’t Write Numbers.

I'm Interested In The Dream And Subconscious Mind, The Peculiar Dream-like Quality Of Our Lives, Sometime Nightmare Quality Of Our Lives.

I Read A Lot, That's My Main Hobby. I've Got An Ipad Which I Store Books On And I Read Voraciously. I'm A Slow Reader But I'm Obsessive. I Make References, Underline Things, Cross-reference. I'm An Autodidact.

You Relax Within The Verse. You Realize The Structure Of The Verse And Relax Into It. It's Like Swimming. Or Riding A Bike. You Can't Make It Sound Real If You Are Thinking It Through As You Go. You Can't Think Through Shakespeare, You Have To Speak It. And Listen To The Rhythm Of It And Then It Takes You Over. And To Make It Sound Real You Speak As If You Believe It. Don't Act It. Just Be It.

I Was Born In The Same Town As Richard Burton, The Actor, And I Saw Him, He Used To Come - He And His Wife Drove By In The Car In My Father's Shop And Burton Would Come Home From Hollywood And Ask Him For His Autograph, And I Thought, I Want To Be Like Him. And That's All I Said To Myself, I Want To Be Like That. I Want To Get Out Of This Environment Of My Own Empty Mind.

Getting Old Ain't For The Faint Of Heart.

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.

Ryan Gosling. He Was A Good Kid, Good Actor. I Like Him Very Much. What Was The Name Of The Movie? I've Forgotten It. Fracture.

I'm Very Much A Loner. I Don't Like Long Relationships With People And I Always Keep People At A Distance.

I Was Hell Bent On Destruction... It Was Like Being Possessed By A Demon.

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.

Sometimes I Feel Tired And Think I Ought To Give It Up, I Don't Want To Just Retire. No, I Enjoy It All And You Just Keep Going Until The Day Comes When You Can't Do It Anymore. And That's What I Want To Do.

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.

There's No Truth In Acting, It's All A Trick, Because You Go On Stage In Front Of Sets, You're On Film - It's All A Trick. I'm Making It Sound Very - I Really Am Demystifying It, But What I Try To Do, What I Do, And I Hope Effectively, Is To Create A Reality As If It Is Happening Now, That You're Fishing For Words Out Of The Air.

I Have No Illusions About My Position In This World As An Actor Or Anything Like That. I'm Very Realistic. Reality Is A Very Liberating Thing.

The Trick Is Not To Get Too Fanatical About Getting The Accent Too Accurate Because Then That Becomes A Mask. What I Try To Do Is Just Painting And Sketching Some Of The Sounds Without Obliterating My Own Voice.

If You Don't Go When You Want To Go, When You Do Go, You'll Find You've Gone.

I Love Traveling. I Like To Keep Moving. I Love The Big Open Spaces In America.

My Weak Spot Is Laziness. Oh, I Have A Lot Of Weak Spots: Cookies, Croissants.

Life's Too Short To Deal With Other People's Insecurities.

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 Play Piano And That's My Love. I Read And I Paint And I Compose Music, So I've Got A Pretty Full Creative Life. And It's Not Because, I'm Obsessively Creative.

I Don't Believe In Nepotism. I Don't Much Like The Idea Of Parents Who Interfere.

Every Time I Try To Retire, Or Even Think Of Retiring From Acting, My Agent Comes Up With A Script.

What Is So Liberating About This Whole Business Is When You See That, You Know, Big Movies Are Going To Come Out, Huge Movies Are Going To Come Out, And Then You See Them Up In Malibu In The Little Triplex Theater A Week Later, On The Scratch Negative, And You Think...“this Is Show Business. This Is The Great Movie Career. And It’s All Finding It In The Shoebox.”

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.

I've Always Been Hopeless At Everything When I Was A Kid. That's Why I Became An Actor - 'cause I Couldn't Do Anything Else.

I'm Composing And Writing Music.

Well, Everyone Likes Movies When They're A Little Kid.

I Think Doubt Is A Very Healthy Way To Live.

I Have No Interest In Shakespeare And All That British Nonsense... I Just Wanted To Get Famous And All The Rest Is Hogwash.

I Said Once That If They Gave Me Enough Money To Read The Phone Book, I'd Do It. I Live In A Total State Of Non-expectation. I Don't Expect Things, And I Keep My Expectations Very Low About Everything.

I Was Trundling Around With My Inadequacies, And Inner Pain And Loneliness. I Yearned, Desperately, To Be Something. I Yearned To Get Out From Where I Was ... Some Deep Discontent Within Myself, Actually Some Deep Dislike Of Myself.

I Don't Know What I Believe.

My Weak Spot Is That I Don't Like Analyzing So I Tend To Be A Bit Lazy; I Tend To Get Bored Quickly, Which Means I Must Be Boring.

I Tried Acting, Liked It, And Stuck With It. I Saw It As The Way I Would Keep That Promise To Myself Of Getting Back At Those Who Had Made My School Life A Misery.

People Forget That Mozart Wrote For Commissions. There's A Thing In Psychology Where They Think If It's Popular, It Can't Be Serious.

I Wouldn't Use The Word 'scared' For My Role As Hitchcock, But It Was My Most Insecure. Taking On Such A Formidable, Giant Personality Such As Hitchcock; He Was One Of The Great Geniuses Of World Cinema. Sheer Genius.

I Do The Best I Can - I Know My Way Around [russian Method Acting Pioneer] Stanislavski, But I Can't Take Myself Seriously Like That. I Respect People Who Do It, Of Course. I Just Think I'm Lucky To Still Be Working At 73. You Reach A Point In Life Where You Just Think, "show Up, Do Your Job, Make Sure The Cheque's On The Way," And That's It. I'm Not Hungry To Do Anything More, Really.

Oliver Stone Is A Great Director And I've Seen Many Films Over The Years, But I Try To Create Stuff Out Of My Own Imagination. I Want To Break All The Rules And Mess About With It And Make A Different Movie Just For The Fun Of It.

I Don't Have Any [favourite Role]. I'm Just A Working Actor.

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Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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