Quotes

To play Tarzan - at my age, with a big belly; even Cheetah with white hair. We've had enough strong and beautiful Tarzans! - at 60

I am not a sex addict.

I don't understand why these Americans have to suffer so much to identify with their characters. Me, I just get up there and act. It's great fun. There's no suffering in it.

(When asked what keeps him going in his theatrical endeavors) In front of a camera, I feel solid, satisfied. Away from it I am empty, confused.

They come for you in the morning in a limousine; they take you to the studio; they stick a pretty girl in your arms... They call that a profession? Come on!

I only exist when I am working on a film.

(on his views of women) Woman is the sun, an extraordinary creature, one that makes the imagination gallop. Woman is also the element of conflict. With whom do you argue? With a woman, of course. Not with a friend, because he accepted all your defects the moment he found you. Besides, woman is mother-have we forgotten?

(Talking about actors) Theater actors like to change character roles. They don't like to always do the same thing.

I made theater very important in the beginning of my career.

Each year we look for a big name that is attractive to the public and pleasant for the girls.

On his role in La notte (1961): I was a little bit disappointed because I felt that the character, this writer suffering a crisis, was a little bit conventional. Perhaps I would have preferred him to be more angry, more cynical, but then I probably wouldn't have been able to play him anyway. I suppose I felt that I had an example of a writer before me: my friend, Ennio Flaiano. And somehow or other, I don't know why, I felt that this writer should be like him, which obviously wasn't what Antonioni intended. So there was a sort of incomprehension between me and the director. As I went along I lost of that joy, that enthusiasm I had felt which had made me want to do the film. This was the state of mind I was while I was making the film. I would liked to be closer to Antonioni but it wasn't possible. I don't know if it was my fault or whether it was because he (and it is something he has always said) prefers not to have much interaction with the actors.

[Observation, 1962] I have nothing against Hollywood. But today's best films are being made in Italy. So why should I leave Rome?

[referring to Robert De Niro in Raging Bull (1980)] By nature the actor is a kind of wonder who can allow himself to change personalities. If you don't know how to do this, it's better to change professions. I think it's ridiculous to imagine that to play a taxi driver or a boxer you have to spend months and months 'studying' the life of cabdrivers and the weight of fighters.

To be a Latin Lover a man, above all, has to be a great fucker - he has to be infallible and I'm not that. I often foul it up.

When I was young, life seemed long and endless to me.

For a father, daughters are like generous lovers. Who never criticize. Who give him only love. I've always felt that my daughters accepted me as I am, with all my limits. Because they know that I love them more than anything in the world.

I've been told that I arrive by the door and leave by the window.

[speaking about Faye Dunaway in 1987] She was the woman I loved the most. I'll always be sorry to have lost her. I was whole with her for the first time in my life.