Max von Sydow
No doubt, the most important thing in my career was my time with Mr. Bergman, with whom I worked in so many films and also in so many stage productions, so it was a continuous working relationship and also a friendship, of course, that lasted for so many years.Collection: Friendship
Hiroshima has become a metaphor not just for nuclear war but for war and destruction and violence toward civilians. It's not just the idea we should not use nuclear arms. We should not start another war because it's madness.Collection: War
If Jesus came back today, and saw what was going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up.
The most difficult part of playing Christ was that I had to keep up the image around the clock. As soon as the picture finished, I returned home to Sweden and tried to find my old self. It took six months to get back to normal.
The studio rented a house for my wife in Los Angeles under a phony name to keep reporters away. Whenever I wanted to visit her and my children, I would have to sneak in the back door after dark.
The more I had to act like a saint, the more I felt like being a sinner.
During my military service, I performed a sketch in which I played a flea called Max. So when critics kept misspelling my name, I decided to change it and thought, 'Ah! Max!'
In this country, you have movie actors and theatre actors and television actors.
Film acting, if you don't play the lead, you come, and you do your scenes in a few days, and you act with a couple of colleagues. All the rest of the actors you never see, and you don't even meet many of them. And you don't know what will happen with what you've done. Maybe it will be in the film, maybe it will not.
I think English is a fantastic, rich and musical language, but of course your mother tongue is the most important for an actor.
A vacation spot out of season always has a very special magic.
All my life I've been looking for diversity.
Bergman has a very special eye for people. His background taught him to listen and to feel.
Filming is repetition and many takes.
I've never been in a barroom brawl in my life. I just don't do such things.
I accept a role only if it's something I really, really like.
I began imagining scenes in public which some drunk would come up to me and slap me in the face. Nothing like that ever happened, but I often wonder if I would have turned the other cheek.
I don't believe in devils. Indifference and misunderstandings can create evil situations. Most of the time, people who appear to be evil are really victims of evil deeds.
I just feel I shouldn't work too much, because there are so many other things to do.
I remember those days with Bergman with great nostalgia. We were aware that the films were going to be quite important, and the work felt meaningful.
I'm getting too old to play some parts, but I'm still greedy.
I'm not in retirement. I just don't want to work so much, and I don't get that many offers any more.
In a theater, the part is mine and I can control it as I want to. In the movies, I don't have direct contact, and I am fighting technical machinery.
In Hollywood they usually cast me as villains or priests.
It's important to me to work in my own language now and then. I love English, but you can never learn to master a foreign language if you're not brought up with it.
Movies give me an opportunity to go places. I'm not only a Swede but an American, not just a man of my time, but I've been living 2,000 years ago-and not just in a new country, America, but in the Holy Land, too.
Only very rarely are foreigners or first-generation immigrants allowed to be nice people in American films. Those with an accent are bad guys.
Perhaps I scare people. I don't know why.
Playing Christ, I began to feel shut away from the world. A newspaper became one of my biggest luxuries. I noticed that some of my close friends began treating me with reverence.
Playing the role of Christ was like being in a prison. It was the hardest part I've ever had to play in my life. I couldn't smoke or drink in public. I couldn't.
Producers are not gamblers. They want a good return on their investment.
Spielberg knows his craft so well, he can also improvise, and that is a lot of fun.
The idea of working with Steven Spielberg was very attractive. He's such a master. He knows the language of the camera and of filmmaking, which gives him a great freedom.
The offers I get are for grandfathers, uncles - and they often die very quickly in the script.
There are those who want to believe but can't, and there are those who believe as children and it's no problem for them at all.
When I finished the role of Christ, I felt as though I'd been let out on parole. A man who has served 18 months isn't eager to go back to prison.
I would love to do parts I have never done before, but unfortunately, if you have had success in a particular type of character, the casting agents think, 'Oh! We'll have something exactly like that.' It's very boring.
My parents were brought up in families which believed theatre people weren't to be trusted. But they were nice people.
I owe Mr. Bergman so much.
I admired Stephen Daldry very much; I think he's a brilliant director, and also, I feel close to him because he has a lot of theater behind him. He's also a man of great imagination and a lovely sense of humor.
Most screenplays I receive are boring, and some are straight-out bad.
When I was brought up in Sweden, there was a great opportunity for young people to learn how to act in our municipal theaters with their small companies. You would be under contract for eight months and have the summer free to take other opportunities.
Awards are lovely and always welcome.
I'm an actor; I'm not a director.
There are many documentary filmmakers who have a tough time because they don't really get what they need to do what they want. There are so many people with good visions that should be encouraged and helped. And they will deliver, I'm sure.
Unfortunately, not all stories end positively.
Sometimes you become friends with the characters you portray.
It's not a matter of learning lines. It's a matter of getting into the ideas and the will of the person. It's a matter of, 'What does he want to do? What does he want to achieve?'
Italians are great improvisers. If something unforeseen happens, they throw up their hands, and they adjust.
It often disturbs me, when I see a film set in a historical time, that the people are too modern.