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Film is not literature - the image on screen is the information you get.
John Hurt -
I have died in so many spectacular ways, and I remember shooting them all, too. I imagine all those deaths will flash in front of me when I'm on my death bed, faced with the real thing.
John Hurt
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Punk recognised the fact that the establishment had no room. There's no point in saying you've got the establishment wrong because they hadn't got the establishment wrong, they'd got it absolutely dead on.
John Hurt -
I've never been pushy. People have said I should have been, more, but I'm not sure. I've watched hugely ambitious people: the minute they've got a success, they know where it's going, they know how to deal with it, and it all happens for them. Great. But that's not the way I - well, I don't like to use the word 'operate'.
John Hurt -
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.
John Hurt -
You can't lose your concentration at all. And there are times when you're on the stage, and you've got silence, which is wonderful, but you have to have the confidence to make you realize it's fine. You can't suddenly wobble and think, 'They're not interested.'
John Hurt -
I've always felt, and I think I'm qualified to say so because I've won a few awards, that it's a terrible shame to put something in competition with something else to be able to sell something.
John Hurt -
I find it hard to imagine that anyone could be intimidated by me.
John Hurt
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I've done a couple of conferences where you sit and sign autographs for people, and then you have photographs taken with them and a lot of them all dressed up in alien suits or 'Doctor Who' whatevers. I was terrified of doing it because I thought they'd all be loonies, but they are absolutely, totally charming as anything. It's great fun.
John Hurt -
Parents are the worst teachers, if they are good at it and you're not. My father thought I was the densest offspring he could have produced.
John Hurt -
Everyone I've ever played has been flawed.
John Hurt -
Everybody, I think, that was in 'Harry Potter' was certainly introduced to an enormous lot of young people.
John Hurt -
I say you play a part, you don't work one.
John Hurt -
Don't forget there are two sides to performing. Finding the truth, but you also have to be transparent enough for the audience to see it. How many times have you seen a performance and thought: 'Well, it seems to be meaning a great deal to you but it ain't coming across to me?' It is to be shared.
John Hurt
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I've lived publicly and never hidden behind closed doors. Therefore, if I have gone over the top sometimes, it has been visible.
John Hurt -
I think people should be protected from being made to feel that they want to know what somebody famous had for breakfast.
John Hurt -
I have done quite a lot of outsider figures.
John Hurt -
Everybody's got to work with Roger Corman. You can't leave out that experience.
John Hurt -
I've done all sorts of children's things before, but none as big as 'Harry Potter.'
John Hurt -
I'm not really a big musical fan. I enjoyed 'West Side Story' when it came out, but it gets a bit tired in the end.
John Hurt
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Half the stuff I have done which has been successful would never have been made if it had been shown to focus groups.
John Hurt -
The clergy is in the same business as actors, just a different department.
John Hurt -
There are situations where you are left robbed of all quality of life, and I believe it is entirely up to you how you want to deal with that. You can follow the dictates of religion if that is what you believe in, or you can take a personal decision.
John Hurt -
Picasso was hugely innovative, and, wow, did he have facility, amazing ability, but I don't think he painted a masterpiece.
John Hurt