Quotes from Christopher Plummer

I'm used to big roles and lots of words.

I wasn't thrilled about 'The Sound Of Music' - not the movie itself but my role in it. Captain Von Trapp was a bore, and they tried to help by giving it a bit more cynicism, but it wasn't my favourite role. I enjoyed the music, and I loved Julie Andrews.

I think a lot of directors over the years have cast me because they see something of another generation in me: you know, certain people look like they've come from the 19th century. Because I have classical background I suppose that is more suitable to patriarchal roles and easily infuses them.

I was always a happy kid. I'd play the piano fairly well. I did all sorts of things fairly well. But who the hell wants to be happy all the time? It's a miserable state to be in permanently. Can you imagine how dreary that would be?

Some of the best casts I've ever worked with have been dogs.

The devil is more interesting than God.

Try and stay sober. Until the curtain call. And for God's sake, have fun. Don't suffer for your art. Just have fun.

History remembers most what you did last.

A lot of people want to retire; I couldn't. You don't retire in our business. What, play golf and watch television? Oh, please.

I want to paint Montreal as a rather fantastic city, which it was, because nobody knows today what it was like. And I'm one of the last survivors, or rapidly becoming one.

In Montreal, when I grew up, I'd go to the Notre-Dame Basilica, a gorgeous cathedral in town. I'd listen to huge symphony orchestras, Pavarotti singing operas; that was absolutely marvelous. I like that aspect of the cathedral, the spectacle.

You're only two years older than me, darling. Where have you been all my life?

Unless you can surround yourself with as many beautiful things as you can afford, I don't think life has very much meaning.

Most of my life I have played a lot of famous people but most of them were dead so you have a poetic license.

Simon Pegg is terribly talented, very funny, such a delicious sense of humour.

I didn't have to keep a bloody journal. It's terribly boring keeping a journal anyway. I hate it. You spend more time writing down life instead of living it.

I think anger does fuel a successful acting career. To play the great roles, you have to learn how to blaze.

I was an only child, so I was very demanding. I enjoyed it thoroughly, but I wasn't very pleasant.

Here is Mike Wallace, who is visible to the public, and I have been watching him since the early '50s. Smoking up a storm and insulting his guests and being absolutely wonderfully evil and charming too.

I admire Ridley Scott, and I'm thrilled to be making a movie for him.

They realized I was alive again, even though I was playing an old, dying sop.

It is a culture voice, but it is a very American culture voice, and I am very used to English culture voice. So I had to work like hell to flatten those R's.

Oh, I don't have any religious beliefs.

We used to listen to Lionel Barrymore do 'A Christmas Carol' on the radio long ago, and I like Reginald Owen, who played Scrooge in the first treatment for the screen. But my favorite Scrooge was Alastair Sim. He was enchanting, an absolutely beautiful performance.