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.
I could never learn to be totally fluent in any other language.
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.
All of us, we deserve to survive.
Filming is repetition and many takes.
We should look back now and then. Our politicians should look back every now and then.
Mr. Bergman had a great imagination and saw the possibilities within every one of his actors, and he gave us great challenges. It was very inspiring.
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 accept a role only if it's something I really, really like.
The more I had to act like a saint, the more I felt like being a sinner.
I was in such a hurry to be an actor. Now I'm sometimes mad at myself that I didn't stop and study for a couple of years.
I would like to do 'King Lear.' But I would like to do it in Swedish.
Bergman was courageous in choosing people to do things that they themselves might not expect to play.
I've never been in a barroom brawl in my life. I just don't do such things.
I'm an actor; I'm not a director.
Awards are lovely and always welcome.
Bergman has a very special eye for people. His background taught him to listen and to feel.
Human beings are human beings whether they speak or not.
It was great to watch Orson Welles, not only as an actor but as a director.
A vacation spot out of season always has a very special magic.
Between you and me, odd things happen always on set.
My parents were brought up in families which believed theatre people weren't to be trusted. But they were nice people.
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.
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.
Mr. Bergman was a man of great working discipline. He forced everyone to concentrate when it was important. No disturbing noise during rehearsal. A code of silence.
Unfortunately, not all stories end positively.
I actually know the moment I became known. It was at the Cannes Film Festival, when they showed 'The Virgin Spring.' I walked into that theater as one person, and I walked out as another.
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.
Most screenplays I receive are boring, and some are straight-out bad.
To me, part of the fascinating profession of acting is to participate in all these strange situations, to try to understand all these interesting characters, fictitious or real, their human nature... It's extraordinarily fascinating.
You cannot study acting in books. Do it, do it, do it. And watch good actors. See what they are doing and how they are doing it. You have to practically participate, I think, in order to develop yourself.
I'm getting too old to play some parts, but I'm still greedy.
All my life I've been looking for diversity.
The Devil, of course, must have been or must be a very charming person.
In a silent film, you speak but the audience does not hear you.
Perhaps I scare people. I don't know why.
Nobody told me there was any idea for a sequel to 'The Exorcist.' But my agent called me to tell me they were going to do it, and there was a part for me. I said, 'But I died in the first film.' 'Well,' he told me, 'this is from the early days of Father Merrin's life.' I told him I just didn't want to do it again.
The offers I get are for grandfathers, uncles - and they often die very quickly in the script.
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 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.
Spielberg knows his craft so well, he can also improvise, and that is a lot of fun.
Sometimes you remember more about the location where you shot the film than the film itself.
Only very rarely are foreigners or first-generation immigrants allowed to be nice people in American films. Those with an accent are bad guys.
I'm not in retirement. I just don't want to work so much, and I don't get that many offers any more.
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.
When I know what the character I'm supposed to play wants in general terms, and when I know what did the other characters want to do, that's when all these wills collide and the emotions show up.
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?'
There are casting directors with lots of imagination, but also some with not as much imagination.
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.
