Quotes from John Hurt

The first film is everything you want to say and how you want to say it. Lots of directors will do that and do it really well, but the second film is not so easy.

I have lots of favourite memories but I can't say that I have a favourite film.

I've worked with people from Fred Zinnemann, John Huston, through to Richard Fleischer, all of those boys from Hollywood and so on, and Sam Peckinpah and then the Mike Radfords.

I stopped asking a long time ago, "why would you want me to play that?" I'm an actor. That's what I do.

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.

I'm somewhat old-fashioned, and I still talk about playing a part. I don't talk about my work - 'I've seen some of your work' - there's not much work in it, is there?

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.

Each day, as you get older, there is a new perspective on life. It's a progression of some sort.

I think love can be really tough. Because it involves ultimately an honesty to the nth degree that you are capable of. Once said, you've lost your deposit. It's best if you don't say it.

Ultimately, the film industry has always pushed out its biggies, and I don't have a problem with that. I just wish that we'd spend more time nurturing the smaller ones.

I've got plenty of train memories. I was sent to school when I was eight years old in 1948 in Kent. So I had to go through London in 1948, just after the war. Many ,many strange experiences.

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.

I don't think you automatically become an enlightened person because you are a daddy. But they will change you, of course - their understanding of you puts you in a different place.

I think fame makes people a bit nervous.

It would be difficult to have any unfulfilled ambitions because I don't have any ambitions. I've never been that kind of performer.

'The Naked Civil Servant' was as important for me as 'Easy Rider' was for Jack Nicholson. No question.

Acting is an imaginative exercise. It would be odd if you didn't try to identify with the roles you play, but I think I can differentiate between where my imagination is leading me and where I actually am.

I felt, you know, body and soul, as it were. But, of course, I mean, I - at that age, I didn't think in terms of being professional. I didn't know anything about it. That happened later.

Very broadly speaking, you can put directors into two areas: One for whom you work, and the other with whom you work. And I prefer the latter, for obvious reasons.

Some directors involve waiting, and if you want to work with that particular director you're going to have to hang around.

I've never changed the way I live. I still walk the streets; I don't give a damn. And everyone's very nice to me. But this new idea of being famous for no reason at all? I can't actually get my head round it.

It's amazing how quickly human beings adapt, isn't it? It was such a great crew, and David [Lynch] was wonderful to work with [on 'The Elephant Man']. It was a very thrilling time, actually.

I wanted to work with those boys (producers Andy and Larry Wachowski) because they're so eccentric and peculiar. Larry, of course, is halfway towards being a woman now. It's a crazy world.

Pretending to be other people is my game and that to me is the essence of the whole business of acting.