John Hurt Quotes
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Everyone I've ever played has been flawed.
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I find it hard to imagine that anyone could be intimidated by me.
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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.
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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.
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I'm fascinated by the business of belief, obviously, because it's so ever present with humanity anyway. And, you know, when you have science, which constantly talks of proofs, you have religion, which constantly talks of beliefs and faith and so on.
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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'.
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I've done all sorts of children's things before, but none as big as 'Harry Potter.'
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Film is not literature - the image on screen is the information you get.
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I think people should be protected from being made to feel that they want to know what somebody famous had for breakfast.
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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.
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I've been incredibly lucky with the directors I've worked with.
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I knew I didn't want to pursue an academic career at all, which, of course, my father would have loved me to have done. I didn't want to go to university. The only other thing I could do was paint, and so I went to art school because they couldn't conceive of how one would be an actor.
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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.
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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.
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To me, nothing ever feels like a sure thing. I cling to that because it's very important you don't ever think anything is a sure thing.
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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.'
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My parents felt that acting was far too insecure. Don't ask me what made them think that painting would be more secure.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Things come in a quieter way to me. It's not laziness, and it's not diffidence. I just know how far you have to bend for work. That's important for me.
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If you do an interview in 1960, something it's bound to change by the year 2000. And if it doesn't, then there's something drastically wrong.
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I have done quite a lot of outsider figures.
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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.