John Hurt Quotes

"I never had any ambition to be a star, or whatever it is called, and I'm still embarrassed at the word."

"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."

"My parents felt that acting was far too insecure. Don't ask me what made them think that painting would be more secure."

"Also the wonderful thing about film, you can see light at the end of the tunnel. You did realise that it is going to come to an end at some stage."

"I mark a script like an exam, and I try not to do anything under 50 per cent. Similarly with the part. And also film is a peculiar thing, parts don't necessarily read in script form anything like as well as they can do when it comes to materialising."

"I was keen on sports-that's how my nose got this way. It's not actually broken; the nose was just pushed up a little bit and moved over. It's an aquiline nose, quite Irish."

"Obviously, the arrogance of my own nature in regards to other people's work would suggest that I think I'm talented."

"As Beckett said, it's not enough to die, one has to be forgotten as well."

"I remember once when I told Lindsay Anderson at a party that acting was just a sophisticated way of playing cowboys and Indians he almost had a fit."

"I put everything I can into the mulberry of my mind and hope that it is going to ferment and make a decent wine. How that process happens, I'm sorry to tell you I can't describe."

"His life has really opened up since I made him a Senator"

"I think the director, John Huston, took on the picture because he's been trying to outdo his father, Walter Huston, and that's impossible. How do you cope with a genius? I couldn't communicate with my own father."

"It's quite a dangerous career move to go wilfully on making films that may not find a distributor."

"Shooting Dogs. It?s a wake-up call."

"Water will begin to slide down those hills toward the flat intersection and hold it until it has an opportunity to drain."

"I turn up in Los Angeles every now and then, so I can get some big money films in order to finance my smaller money films."

"Nudes are the greatest to paint. Everything you can find in a landscape or a still life or anything else is there: darkness and light, character dimension, texture. I painted heads too, of course."

"Pretending to be other people is my game and that to me is the essence of the whole business of acting."

"It's an immensely competitive business, and I can tell you the older you get, the parts are fewer, and the people who are proven performers are greater."

"If I'm in theatre, cinema doesn't even cross my mind. Similarly when I'm making a film, theatre doesn't cross my mind."