Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
You can't deny reality just because you can't explain it.
I'd love most of the movies I make to be four hours long.
I teach for the Book Trust, which promotes reading and writing with children.
It's hard for it to make a mark in this city because London has so much culture to offer.
I work best when a little scared, when there's so much more than the lines to think about.
There are far more good actors than there are jobs for them, so it's a big question of luck.
You always get told how important the premiere and doing the press is, but I have suspicions.
We're blessed with, as we were on 'Harry Potter,' lead actors who are amazingly grounded people.
Often jobs are un-turndownable even before you read the script. You go, 'Well, I have to do that.'
Often jobs are un-turndownable even before you read the script. You go, "Well, I have to do that."
I'm very interested in people, so if a character happens to be real, there's that much more to look at.
All of these red carpet events may seem natural for you journalists, but it doesn't feel natural for actors.
It's always very strange to have your life dramatized because it never happens like that. Things will be different.
I didn't sound anything like Capote at the screen test. It was more like Bob Dylan. In his early years. With the flu.
I get plenty of time to re-engage with the world I'm trying to depict, so I'm not always living in these parallel worlds.
I do always feel very proud and flattered by being asked to be a part of American productions playing American characters.
Jennifer [Lawrence] and Josh [Hutcherson] seem very, very grounded. They're getting down to the film like they did last time.
If you ever have the good fortune to meet Tippi Hedren, she's an amazing woman. You can't quite believe she is the age she is.
I had to change the shape of my own voice. It was quite hard to pull off and so once I had it, I stayed in Hitchcock's voice all day on set.
They know you're not Alfred Hitchcock, but you need to be enough Alfred Hitchcock for them not to be bothered by it. That's a reassuring thing.
I would absolutely like to play more leading roles. There’s no philosophy - well, the only philosophy, I suppose, is to try and do different things.
I would absolutely like to play more leading roles. There's no philosophy - well, the only philosophy, I suppose, is to try and do different things.
It's one of those jobs where you go, 'Oh no, I've got to play Alfred Hitchcock. I have to play him even though I know what this is going to involve.'
I've got to tell you, I've played real characters before and people always bring up this word 'impersonation,' and I'm never entirely sure what it means.
Jennifer [Lawrence] is amazingly grounded in the midst of all this to do. It must be unnerving and hard to relate to the amount of attention she generates.
But I think the children of actors share a certain pragmatic approach. One is denied some of that 'running away with the circus' element of being an actor.
I think it will be, as always, interesting to compare different portrayals of Hitchcock. I'm very honored that I'm playing the same part as Anthony Hopkins.
One key element to Hitchcock is the drooping jowl. That was crucial because his silhouette is crucial. There is something about his silhouette that became his brand.
Particularly [Alfred] Hitchcock, who takes his time with everything he says. There's a controlling way in how he speaks because he takes his time to finish all his sentences.
I often get sent scripts about little men in big situations. There's a comic element to it, which is forces stacked against this little guy, and how is he going to defeat them?
I love making movies, I love trying to make them as good as I can, but I feel like sometimes the marketing and publicity around the movie, becomes the most important part of it.
There's not a huge pile of scripts at home. It's what happens to be on the table at that moment with your availability. And then you have no control over when these things come out.
It's hard to imagine anyone interested in film not being a fan of Alfred Hitchcock because he's such a key influence on the entire history of cinema - it's hard to escape his shadow.
I don't know if it's harder but when you're playing a real person you want to honor their memory - even if they're a criminal or someone that the public loathed. That can be challenging.
Certainly for my father, there were great times, good times, not-so-good times. He might be shooting a Fellini film for six months, then not working for two months. I'm used to that dynamic.
Every now and then, they ask me to come in and improvise with Stanley Tucci for an afternoon. They fly me off to America, I improvise for an afternoon - it's not the hardest, most taxing job.
There's something in the rhythm and roll of it that is connected to the way Hitchcock thinks and moves. Then there is everything he ingested - the cigar smoking and drinking that's imprinted on his voice.
Somewhere the glamour has gone because of the industrialization of this whole process. I wish it [filming] felt as magical and glamorous as people want it to be, but it feels like a routine people are going through.
They seem much rarer now, those auteur films that come out of a director's imagination and are elliptical and hermetic. All those films that got me into independent cinema when I was watching it seem thin on the ground.
The thing about Hitchcock which is quite extraordinary for a director of that time, he had a very strong sense of his own image and publicizing himself. Just a very strong sense of himself as the character of Hitchcock.
There are things that I would avoid, so I have the choice to say no, when I feel I'm repeating myself too much. But then there could be a reason to do that with a good director. So I think actors have to have a loose philosophy.
I know, for a fact, that I'm a very different person on my own than I am with someone else. We are different with each other. These things are constantly adjusted. And that's true of humans. That's not just true of famous people.
The prosthetics were interesting because the artist was so good that they could just put a Hitchcock mask on me, but you don't want to do that. You're an actor playing Hitchcock, so it's about how much of that you're going to do.
You come in as this satellite part of the film [Catching Fire], so I only see Stanley [Tucci] in my scenes. These kinds of movies have so many different components; it's about as different from doing The Girl as you could imagine.
You're playing a character in a drama who happens to be based on someone who existed. It's never going to 'be' that person, but it's based on someone well-known, and you want to create enough of that person for it not to be a distraction.
There is this miraculous thing I heard Hugh Grant talking about - the thing about screen acting is that you can read people's thoughts. You are trying to register something inside and usually the eyes in cinema are where you will register that.
When working abroad you work pretty hard, but with time off, this is the greatest job in the world. You drive. You explore Memphis, or wherever you've landed, or go and see Dr John, or the Californian landscape. And, yes, I've had a few good meals.
The script for 'Infamous' was so poised between tragedy and comedy. It's a dream part. One reads those scripts with a sense of melancholia. When you read a script that good I remember thinking, 'Oh, this script is too good. They'll never give it to me.'
The script for 'Infamous' was so poised between tragedy and comedy. It's a dream part. One reads those scripts with a sense of melancholia. When you read a script that good... I remember thinking, 'Oh, this script is too good. They'll never give it to me.'
What happens is some of the characters I've played have voices that are so different from my own, that it would be ridiculous if I would dip in and out of that voice in between takes to ask for a coffee, or something. Or to gossip about whatever was going on.