Quotes from Christopher Lee

We don't live in a particularly attractive world. I don't really remember, except as a small boy, anything but a pretty grim world.

I don't play long parts. They must be short parts, but they've got to be parts that mean something, that matter, where people will notice when I'm on the screen, and people will remember the character after they've seen the film.

One of the first things a British visitor to Southern California discovers is that he must have a car. Freeways. Bad public transport. I took driving lessons.

I don't think anyone has ever succeeded in putting Ian Fleming's James Bond up on the screen. The closest in my opinion is Pierce Brosnan.

When I was very young - around the age of nine - my family used to go to a house in Somerset that my stepfather rented every summer. There was fishing, lakes and riding.

Somebody once asked me how I found Peter Jackson, and I said: 'Well, I parted his hair, and there he was.'

A whole new career opened up for me when I was in 'Lord Of The Rings' and 'Star Wars.'

I didn't want to be known as a man who only made horror films. I made some - very few.

What's really important for me is, as an old man, I'm known by my own generation and the next generation know me, too.

I associate heavy metal with fantasy because of the tremendous power that the music delivers.

I haven't spent my entire career playing the guy in the bad hat, although I have to say that the bad guy is frequently much more interesting than the good guy.

I think acting is a mixture of instinct, imagination and inventiveness. All you can learn as an actor is basic technique.

To be a legend, you've either got to be dead or excessively old.

I lived for 10 years in Los Angeles, and the one element that surpasses everything else - that you are very conscious of - is fear. You can smell it.

You can learn Elvish, if you want. It's a language like Italian and English. You can learn to read it, you can learn to write it, and you can learn to speak it.

There was a gap of seven years between the first and second Dracula movies. In the second one as everybody knows, I didn't speak, because I said I couldn't say the lines.

Every actor has to make terrible films from time to time, but the trick is never to be terrible in them.

People should not pass judgment until they have seen the film.

There is a dark side in all of us. And for us 'bad' people, the bad side dominates. I think there is a great sadness in villains, and I have tried to put that across. We cannot stop ourselves doing what we are doing.

I don't really like long flights any more - I find them too tiring. Flying always involves the same things these days - huge crowds at airports, waiting around, late take-offs, weather problems, and so on. I don't really enjoy travelling. I don't imagine anyone does except young children.

I've always acknowledged my debt to Hammer. I've always said I'm very grateful to them. They gave me this great opportunity, made me a well known face all over the world for which I am profoundly grateful.

If I had any deadly secrets, I wouldn't still be alive.

'The Wicker Man' for me, as an actor, was definitely the best film I've ever done.

I have been metal all my life, only I did not know about it. The people in this album (Charlemagne) and I, share the same values.