Anthony Hopkins
I never make conscious decisions.
The Welsh people have a talent for acting that one does not find in the English. The English lack heart.
Once you begin to fall off the track and believe you breathe different air to everyone else, you're doomed; you're finished.
I don't know why they gave me a knighthood - though it's very nice of them - but I only ever use the title in the U.S. The Americans insist on it and get offended if I don't.
I was bullied as a boy - lots of kids are, but hopefully most of us get on with our lives and grow up.
I'm devious, cruel, cunning and addictive.
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.
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've got no need to prove to myself that I can do Shakespeare. I've done it.
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.
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 tend to get bored quickly, which means I must be boring.
It was a challenge, to work with Oliver Stone.
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 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.
I like the good life too much, I'm not good at going on stage night after night and on wet Wednesday afternoons.
I'm interested in the dream and subconscious mind, the peculiar dream-like quality of our lives, sometime nightmare quality of our lives.
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 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 a certain amount of stress in life is good. The stress of just working, which takes effort - I think it keeps you going.
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.
I'm fascinated by the fact that we can't grasp anything about time.
I was called 'Dumbo,' like the elephant, as a child because I couldn't understand things at school.
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.
And I love a scary movie. It makes your toes curl and it's not you going through it.
Every time I try to retire, or even think of retiring from acting, my agent comes up with a script.
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.
I don't know what acting is, but I enjoy it.
I have dual citizenship, it just so happens I live in America.
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 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 worked with Lawrence Olivier some years ago. He was a great mentor.
I'm always cast in these strange men... that's not me, really.
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'm the slowest driver in the world.
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.
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.
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.
A conductor can't be too arrogant with an orchestra and try to impose himself too much.
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.
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.
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.
I'm not a health freak. I just work out every day.
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.
We're always looking over our shoulders, 'what they will think, what the press will think, what will this one - am I making the right career move?' When you're young you have to do all that to survive, I suppose.
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.
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.