Martin Landau Quotes
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I was offered the Gene Hackman role in 'The Poseidon Adventure' four times, and I turned it down four times. I didn't want to do that movie. I called it the upside down boat.
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I love to see lack of clarity in a performance as well as clarity, as well as trust, as well as the kinds of things that human beings go through. I love to see spontaneity and 'inevitability.' How it gets there is going to shock the hell out of me, but it will get there somehow.
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In any age range, there are some limitations in terms of good, good parts.
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I trained as an actor with Lee Strasberg, Elia Kazan, and Harold Clurman, and those guys set a very high bar.
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People think I'm a very serious actor, which I am. But you know, if you don't have a sense of humor doing what I do, you perish.
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Actors need to trust themselves. If you trust yourself, you can trust others and leave the director outside.
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The Italian tough guys, dey talk real deep like dis down in dere chests... while the Irish speak way high-ah, up here in their heads.
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A lot of the time with an independent production, you go onto the set, and you rehearse it in front of the crew, and at that point, the cinematographer takes over. You start accommodating the camera instead of the camera accommodating you.
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I did a picture called 'Lovely, Still' with Ellen Burstyn, We screened it to the AARP people in Las Vegas, 2000 of them. We got a standing ovation from people who couldn't stand.
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My father was an Austrian, and he brought some Torahs over to this country, ancient Torahs that were slipped out of Germany.
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I'm very proud of Space 1999. Its success paved the way for other sci-fi shows to follow. My hope is that the DVD release will help it reach a new generation of fans.
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I like a character that is still alive and is necessarily thinking, and either grows or diminishes or whatever.
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You can't perish because of your own feelings; you have to embrace those things as an actor because it's part of your palette.
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I studied with Strasberg, Elia Kazan. They raised the bar. They weren't easy to please, and they made you achieve the best you could do. That's what a teacher does: he infuses you with passion for something.
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As a Jew, there's a need to keep that atrocity alive. There were Catholics and gypsies and homosexuals who died in the Holocaust, too. It's amazing that people allowed this slaughter to take place. There's a need to make these films and reiterate it happened.
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Of course, I remember the Disney 'Pinocchio.' I was a little kid then... It was very instructive. Little boys who don't behave wind up in lots of trouble.
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I played a wide variety of roles.
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You have to be crazy to do theater.
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I'm a big believer that an actor should be able to pick up any piece of material and act it, the way a good musician can.
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I did theatrical caricatures.
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A film is not going to change the world. But if it can do that to individuals on an individual level, I think it's a magnificent movie.
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I think we've all done things we're not particularly fond of. Everybody goes through it and comes out the other end, and goes on with his life as if it didn't happen.
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Subliminally, I had always wanted to act. Although I had only performed in a couple of plays, I was serious about it and was subsequently trained by people like Lee Strasberg and Elia Kazan.
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How a character hides his feelings tells us something about him.