I bought a former library, not because I have a lot of books, but also I like architecture, and it was built in 1965, and I like gardening.Collection: Gardening
I'll tell you what a friendship is to me. Friendship to me is, if my friends need my little finger to live, I'm going to have it cut off. I'm going to the hospital, they cut off my finger, and maybe I have a gold finger instead, and I become famous. But I still give it to my friend.Collection: Friendship
The villain is the character that the people remember.
I was in 'Iron Sky,' the first one, and I liked it very much. I liked the technology being used. The technology has such power.
My dream would be to play the villain in a James Bond movie, or opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger. I like everything exaggerated.
I like 'Brawl in Cell Block 99.' I think Vince Vaughn is incredible and I've never seen Don Johnson like that. It is very realistic. Some people say it is a horror film. It is not a horror film at all. It is very realistic.
Evil has no limits. If you are a good person, everybody expects you to be good. If you are very good then you become Albert Schweitzer or Mother Theresa. Then you're very good because you are helping people. But evil has no limits.
Werner Herzog, I knew him for so many years, when Fassbinder was at his highest moment. But we had a rule: An actor from Fassbinder could never work with an actor of Werner Herzog or Wim Wenders. Because if we would have done that, we would have been spies. 'Ah, you worked with Werner - how was it? How did he direct you?' I was Fassbinder's actor.
Lars von Trier, Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog: They all write, which is much better because it's their baby, and they know what they want.
Gus van Sant I met at the Berlin film festival, and he came up to me. He had a little film in the festival called 'Mala Noche' that he had made for $20,000. He said: 'You are one of my favourite actors. I'm doing 'My Own Private Idaho' with River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves. You should be in it!' Then I started working with Gus.
I like to work with directors who write their own stories.
I collect chairs and lights, which obviously means I want to sit in the light - not surprising for an actor I suppose.
My great joy these days is giving palm trees water. Simple as that.
I tried all my life to be a normal person.
I have a lot of palm trees, because they say to me holidays and ocean. I grew up very poor and I had an aunt who would go on holiday and send me postcards of palm trees and I would pin them to the wall, so I've gone from that fantasy to reality.
When I'm depressed and the weather is bad I look up my page on IMDb and I have my coffee and feel better. There are even films on there I don't know about!
I don't mind playing Nazis, but I'll only play them in comedies. I wouldn't play a serious Nazi.
There are a few directors - quite a few - who I would like to work with, but I have never written a letter to a director in my life.
I remember when I worked with Fassbinder in Germany, actors wrote letters to him. But you see, a director wants to discover you himself. He doesn't want the actor to say, 'oh, I'd love to work with you' - the actor says that to other people, too.
I like to go from film to film, meeting new people and playing new roles. Because actors are like children: They want to play, and I like to play.
I try to do movies that are special.
I like special directors, and I've collected a few.
I want to have fun. Big Hollywood films can be fun, but you know it's an industry, and if you don't function, they send you home.
Good movies are difficult to make, and good trash is even harder to make.
I'm an aesthetic person who loves beauty.
I have few friends. I can count them on one hand. I go by myself to the cleaners and the supermarket and I live alone with my dogs.
I had such a horrible childhood. My father was already married with three children when I was born and my mother didn't know. So we grew up poor. We had no hot water until I was 17. I went to work in a factory, and worked and saved for months until I had the money to come to England.
Working with someone like Fassbinder was a 24-hour job. You had to be part of the family, and play his games.
I was brought up in Germany, born in 1944, and there was nothing to eat.
Until I was 16 or 17, we had no water. My mother had to cook water in a kettle, and once a week I was bathed, and that was it.
I've been in over a hundred films so I know what producers are like.
I was fascinated by the story of FW Murnau, one of the most famous directors in Germany, where I come from.
My agent is a vampire, my lawyer is a vampire, they're all vampires, but they don't suck your blood, they take your money! Vampires are everywhere. It just depends what they're running after.
With these kinds of figures you can do whatever you want as an actor because there are no guidelines, there are no real vampires. Except in Los Angeles, where everybody's a vampire, you know?
Frankenstein' was more programmed, but 'Dracula' we did as it came along because at the beginning we weren't sure how it was going to end - it wasn't written in the script.
I like the vampire films because of the fantasy of it.
I like to work with directors where you feel they make the movies not for the audience, but make them for themselves. They don't care if it's a success financially. That's what I like.
I don't wear gloves when I work in the garden.
Normally, I like my privacy in the high desert.
I made films, like 'Shadow of the Vampire,' and I did not like the work I did on it and then Willem Dafoe was nominated for the Oscar. I made films like 'The Adventures of Pinocchio' with Martin Landau. I thought I would get nominated and it flopped. You never know.
I like to have the newest thing. I like the Internet, they know more about me than I do, which is amazing.
Artistically I like to do short-term things. Like I do a lot of commercials, I have the Miller commercial out where I play the Devil in Hell, where Hell is frozen.
There's actors and actresses who I call 'Trailer Stars' because their importance is expressed by how big their trailers are. And then there are real actors, who are real good people.
I like digital films.
I'm coming from an artistic background, from Europe, making films with Lars Van Trier like 'Breaking the Waves,' 'Dancer in the Dark,' all his films, 'The Kingdom.' But I like both, I like the totally artificial, commercial films where the actor has five or six bodyguards, I like that.
For me to do interviews is painful. People don't know that. To do an interview is going back in time. And to go back in time, maybe it wasn't all the time that good.
I'm scared of high buildings.
Audition is the worst thing. It's like cleaning furniture in a department store.
The first day of shooting came, and of course I was nervous. I would lie if I said I wasn't impressed. I mean, Lars von Trier hiring me to be the king in 'Medea'... Lars said, 'Stop! Stop!' And I was so nervous, I turned around and said, 'What is it?' He said, '... Just be a tired king.'
Rob Zombie's very intellectual-crazy, and I like people like that. No stupid craziness.