Quotes

[When asked why he chose acting as a profession] "If I was going to be broke I decided I might as well be with actors as anyone else. They were cheerful idiots and seemed to take it better."

Good acting should teach people to understand rather than judge.

Hollywood must have been terrific once.

Success is a very tough mistress. For years, while you're struggling, she wants nothing to do with you. Then, one day you find yourself in the room with her and even though the key is on the inside, you can't leave. 'You've made your choice', she says, 'I don't care how exhausted you are - you're going to stay here for the rest of your life making love to me'.

I do not believe that with a fictional character you can force yourself too far away from yourself. There has to be some of you in it.

[on film producer Ross Hunter] He's a very pleasant man. He may sound like Reader's Digest, but he believes every word he says. He's never lost touch with Disneyland.

[on how he coped with the challenge of conducting the first erotic film kiss with another male actor in 'Sunday, Bloody Sunday'] I did it for England.

[on screenplays]: It really is no good getting surgeons in, the script has to be right at the beginning; and it has taken me, I'm ashamed to say, some thirty years to find out that you mustn't listen to anybody at lunch any more.

[on not winning the Oscar for Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)] One's disappointment, perhaps - and there must be some - is mixed with enormous relief that you don't have to get up there and say something.