Max Von Sydow Quotes

In a silent film, you speak but the audience does not hear you.

Awards are lovely and always welcome.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It was great to watch Orson Welles, not only as an actor but as a director.

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.

Italians are great improvisers. If something unforeseen happens, they throw up their hands, and they adjust.

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.

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.

Producers are not gamblers. They want a good return on their investment.

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!'

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.

The Devil, of course, must have been or must be a very charming person.

I understand German; I can read German.

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?'

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.

I would like to do 'King Lear.' But I would like to do it in Swedish.

I find it very hard to take myself seriously.

There are casting directors with lots of imagination, but also some with not as much imagination.

I owe Mr. Bergman so much.

Ingmar Bergman had a great sense of humor, and he had a very special, characteristic laugh that you always recognized - if he went to watch a theater show, 'Ah! He is here tonight.'

I'm an actor; I'm not a director.

Filming is repetition and many takes.

I think it's good that we're sometimes reminded of important events in history.

I just feel I shouldn't work too much, because there are so many other things to do.

I think English is a fantastic, rich and musical language, but of course your mother tongue is the most important for an actor.

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.

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 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.

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.

Bergman was courageous in choosing people to do things that they themselves might not expect to play.

All of us, we deserve to survive.

I accept a role only if it's something I really, really like.

I've never been in a barroom brawl in my life. I just don't do such things.

Perhaps I scare people. I don't know why.

There comes a time, thief, when the jewels cease to sparkle, when the gold loses its luster, when the throne room becomes a prison, and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

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 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.

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.

I think the film you hear about the most is 'The Exorcist.' When people come up to me and say, 'Oh, you scared me!' I was the good guy in that film!

Only very rarely are foreigners or first-generation immigrants allowed to be nice people in American films. Those with an accent are bad guys.

Between you and me, odd things happen always on set.

Bergman has a very special eye for people. His background taught him to listen and to feel.

What is important, I think, is to reach as many people as you can and do it as well as you can. Reach them and inspire them or amuse them, or maybe in some odd moments help them to discover something they hadn't thought of before.

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.

My parents were brought up in families which believed theatre people weren't to be trusted. But they were nice people.

New York is a fascinating city. I think it's a very inspiring city, but it's overpowering when you get older. It tires me now. But it's wonderful for young people - very inspiring and full of surprises and full of ideas.

Spielberg knows his craft so well, he can also improvise, and that is a lot of fun.

It often disturbs me, when I see a film set in a historical time, that the people are too modern.

I've been the type of father who tries desperately to be perfect but doesn't succeed all the time.

Unfortunately, not all stories end positively.

France is, for me, the country of happiness.

Most screenplays I receive are boring, and some are straight-out bad.

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.

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.

The offers I get are for grandfathers, uncles - and they often die very quickly in the script.

My father was a professor of folklore, and my mother was a teacher until she was married. I had a good relationship with them, and the only argument we had was when I went to university and wanted to go into the theater instead of studying to be a lawyer.

I'm getting too old to play some parts, but I'm still greedy.

I could never learn to be totally fluent in any other language.

Human beings are human beings whether they speak or not.

All my life I've been looking for diversity.

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.

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.

I don't have a philosophy for choosing roles. Sometimes, it's just, 'This might be interesting; that might be fun to do.' There might be interesting actors or directors in the project, even if the part is not important. And then sometimes, you need the money.

Sometimes you become friends with the characters you portray.