Max von Sydow

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

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.

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

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.

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.

I understand German; I can read German.

Film work can be very interesting, but it also can be awfully boring because who creates the film? The actors? No. It is the director. It's his piece of work.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If people ask me, 'For you, what is your most important film?' I have a feeling that they all sort of want me to answer with one of the Bergman films. But I cannot choose.

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

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.

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

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

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?'

Sometimes you become friends with the characters you portray.

Unfortunately, not all stories end positively.

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.

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

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

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

Sometimes you remember more about the location where you shot the film than the film itself.

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

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.

I find it very hard to take myself seriously.

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 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!

All of us, we deserve to survive.

We should look back now and then. Our politicians should look back every now and then.

It's very difficult being an actor and being away for a lot of time, but my sons haven't complained too much too often.

Awards are lovely and always welcome.

Human beings are human beings whether they speak or not.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

France is, for me, the country of happiness.

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 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.

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.

In this country, you have movie actors and theatre actors and television actors.

In Hollywood they usually cast me as villains or priests.

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'm not in retirement. I just don't want to work so much, and I don't get that many offers any more.

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

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