John Hurt
My criteria when looking for a role is that I will do anything that stands the chance of succeeding on the level it is intended to. After that, if it's a part I can do something personal with.
To me, nothing ever feels like a sure thing. I cling to that because it's very important you don't ever think anything is a sure thing.
Film is not literature - the image on screen is the information you get.
Picasso was hugely innovative, and, wow, did he have facility, amazing ability, but I don't think he painted a masterpiece.
Punk recognised the fact that the establishment had no room. There's no point in saying you've got the establishment wrong because they hadn't got the establishment wrong, they'd got it absolutely dead on.
I like entertaining. I adore it. I feel I'm in the right place. Without question.
If I'm doing a play, 30 to 40 percent of the people that come to the stage door have pictures of 'Alien' for me to autograph. And usually, the photos are pretty gory ones.
Everybody, I think, that was in 'Harry Potter' was certainly introduced to an enormous lot of young people.
I've done all sorts of children's things before, but none as big as 'Harry Potter.'
I'm not interested in awards. I never have been. I don't think they are important. Don't get me wrong, if somebody gives me a prize, I thank them as gratefully as I know how, because it's very nice to be given a prize. But I don't think that awards ought to be sought.
Don't forget there are two sides to performing. Finding the truth, but you also have to be transparent enough for the audience to see it. How many times have you seen a performance and thought: 'Well, it seems to be meaning a great deal to you but it ain't coming across to me?' It is to be shared.
If you listen, you learn; if you talk, you don't.Collection: Ifs
I am really the victim of other people's imagination.Collection: People
The only concession you can make is to what you believe is right.Collection: Believe
In anything really, it's finding the reality. You can't be 'real,' but you can create a reality. And that created reality is what the audience believes in. And that's essential. Because if the audience doesn't believe that, they're never going to trust you. And if they don't trust you, you can't lead them up the mountain.Collection: Real
I loathed school. I don't have an academic mind, and besides I was so bored by my teachers! How teachers can take a child's inventiveness and say yes, yes, in that pontifical way of theirs, and smother everything!Collection: Teacher
Obviously, the arrogance of my own nature in regards to other people's work would suggest that I think I'm talented.Collection: Thinking
I think it's interesting to see how things come into and go out of fashion.Collection: Fashion
I think I'd rather do [acting] in the real place. It requires different things, working with green screen, but its an imaginative exercise anyway, the whole business of acting, so it just gives you a bit more to feed the imagination. Unless it's really silly, just two of you stuck in a space with nothing but green screen that's got to be pretty difficult.Collection: Real
I've never known what I've wanted to do. I've never planned anything in my life.Collection: Wanted
Acting is an imaginative leap, really. And imaginations prosper in different circumstances. And it's being able - I can't tell you how one does, but one tries to read those circumstances correctly.Collection: Imagination
When you're really working well with a director then you can be as outrageous as you like and so can he. And there's no worry about it.Collection: Worry
Also the wonderful thing about film, you can see light at the end of the tunnel. You did realize that it is going to come to an end at some stage.Collection: Tunnels
I think, you have to forget about intellect, to a degree. Intuition is very important when you're working with a lens, I believe, for what the lens is doing, too.Collection: Believe
Anything which retains interest is optimistic. When the characters become disinterested, it's pessimistic. Does that make sense?Collection: Optimistic
You have to learn to cut your cloth accordingly. But it seems to be a human weakness. Once you start making a lot of money, you just join in with everyone else. It's like the banks, and we've seen what happens there.Collection: Cutting
I think you can fan the flames, but I think in the same way that a mathematician is a mathematician - He's not taught to be a mathematician. He either has a feeling for equations and an understanding and delight in it, not only in the purity of it, but in its beauty as well.Collection: Thinking
I do what interests me when I'm invited and do it as well as I know how and try to get better. That's all.Collection: Trying
It's a great relief to feel that you're working with someone rather than for someone. You don't feel that you're being tested, as it were.Collection: Relief
You collect as much information as you can and then you put it into the mulberry of your mind and hope that you come up with a decent wine. Sometimes you do; sometimes you don't.Collection: Wine
I never quite understand why we watch the news. There doesn't really seem much point watching somebody tell you what the news is when you could quite easily listen to it on the radio...Collection: Watches
Some directors involve waiting, and if you want to work with that particular director you're going to have to hang around.Collection: Waiting
Acting is an imaginative leap, really, isn't it? And imaginations prosper in different circumstances. And it's being able - I can't tell you how one does, but one tries to read those circumstances correctly.Collection: Imagination
The common misconception is that we create films for ourselves. And I really don't do it for myself. I get stopped in the street by people saying, "Do you mind if I say this about your work?" Do I mind? I'm delighted. I do it for you. It's not for me. It's my living, yes, sure.Collection: People
The truth is rarely true and never simple.Collection: Simple
People are not what they seem to be according to their looks.Collection: People
Developing characters is a collective process, on one hand; it's an individual process on the other. The truth is rarely pure and never simple, as dear Oscar Wilde would say. A great of it, of course, is, you collect as much information as you can and then you put it into the mulberry of your mind and hope that you come up with a decent wine. Sometimes you do; sometimes you don't.Collection: Wine
You carry that through and adapt it to a camera lens, but you're quite right, you cannot be sure of what an audience is going to do. You don't know what's going to happen to the piece you're doing anyway. You don't know how it's going to be edited. There are a lot more unknowns in cinema. But that you have to readily accept. That's when, I think, you have to forget about intellect, to a degree. Intuition is very important when you're working with a lens, I believe, for what the lens is doing, too.Collection: Believe
I think particularly Daniel [Radcliffe], he knows what he's doing. I'm sure he'll finish up a producer. He really realized what it was, knew the size of it. And it was gigantic, the biggest franchise [Harry Potter] in history.Collection: Thinking
The great joke is that a realist is an optimistic pessimist. That's very witty. Whether it's truthful or not, that I don't know.Collection: Witty
I'm not interested in awards. I never have been. I don't think they are important. Don't get me wrong, if somebody gives me a prize, I thank them as gratefully as I know how, because it's very nice to be given a prize. But I don't think that awards ought to be sought. It encourages our business to be competitive in absolutely the wrong way. We're not sportsmen; we're not trying to come in first.Collection: Nice
I'm not accustomed to doing films without seeing the script. There are certain people that are auteurs, and you accept them regardless of whether you see a script or not. But Spielberg is not an auteur.Collection: People
I'm really the addition of other peoples' imagination, quite honestly. It's what they see me as, and I'm very happy to comply. I find things are more varied that way.Collection: Imagination
I don't like no confusion.Collection: Confusion
I loved working with [ Lars Von Trier], but I've done two films before, so I was quite used to him.He's a man of incredible moods of course, but he's also a hugely perceptive man, and there's no getting away from that. And he's able to put that perception into something like film, so we're very lucky.Collection: Men
I think it would be very difficult to play somebody if they didn't think they had any virtues or redeeming characteristics.Collection: Thinking
Films don't take as long as people think. 'Harry Potter,' people always used to say, 'Well, my God, do you ever get any time to yourself?' I think I did, in 'Harry Potter,' over a 12 year period I did five days. So it's not exactly exhausting.Collection: Thinking
There is always a better choice that you were unable to quite touch with a single stroke. Even in acting, there comes a point, like a painting, where you have to say, "That's it. I can't go any further with it." And sometimes, you say, "I'm really pleased that that's where it's finished up." Other times, you think, "I don't think I really quite got there, but I haven't got time to go any further." Rather reluctantly, you have to say "That's it."Collection: Thinking
People say you never retire in this [film] business and I say, well, not until they retire you.Collection: People