Quotes from Bela Lugosi

The screen magnifies everything, even the way you are thinking.

Of all the roles I've done on the stage, I'm partial to Cyrano de Bergerac.

I don't have a dime left. I am dependent on my friends for food and a small old-age pension.

I never play without my cape.

I'd like to quit the supernatural roles and play just an interesting, down-to-earth person.

In Hungary, acting is a career for which one fits himself as earnestly as one studies for a degree in medicine, law, or philosophy.

My close-up was magnificent!

To portray a maniac offers a compelling challenge.

People, chained by monotony, afraid to think, clinging to certainties... they live like ants.

I'll be truthful. The weekly paycheck is the most important thing to me.

Martyrdom was the price of enthusiasm for acting.

If my accent betrayed my foreign birth, it also stamped me as an enemy, in the imagination of the producers.

In Hungary acting is a profession. In America it is a decision.

Actors were exploited no less by the capitalist managers than they were by the state.

Circumstances made me the theatrical personality I am, which many people believe is also a part of my personal life.

The actor depends wholly on himself. He gives his performance in what, to him, seems the most effective manner.

The vampire was a complete change from the usual romantic characters I was playing, but it was a success.

In making theories, always keep a window open so that you can throw one out if necessary.

Women have a predestination to suffering.

I have played Dracula a thousand times on stage and I find I have become thoroughly settled in the technique of the stage and not of the screen.

A screen actor is compensated in the knowledge that millions will see his performance at one time, where only hundreds will see it on the stage.

When a film company is in the red they come to me. Always it is the same.

It was hell to go through what I went through. I didn't know I had so many friends. Many people gave a damn about my situation. They helped cure me.

I don't have a dime left. I am dependent on my friends for food and a small old-age pension.