Quotes

I'd love to spend more time on the Isle of Man. I love the anonymity of putting on a boiler suit and going down to buy parts for the compressor. And Norman Wisdom's a neighbour; I salute him occasionally.

On a 4th Indiana Jones - "Every three or four years the rumours start again, but any new script has got to be approved by Steven, and by George, and by Harrison. Everyone would like to do one, but the script has got to be better than the other three. Every year Paramount must send boxes of goodies to all three, saying 'please please please make us another one.....'"

One of my abiding memories is being halfway up a mountain and watching two men carrying a basket with my clothes up to me, and another two carrying my armour and axe, then a woman carrying my helmet up, and finally another with my big, heavy boots to give that dwarfish trouser-look. Then they put it all on me and the director said 'now run up that hill'. - on shooting Fellowship of The Ring

On why he left Sliders (1995): I like SF. I love intelligent SF. We had the most wonderful series concept with "Sliders", but we did everything that had been done before and we did it every damned episode. We did Species (1995). We did Tremors (1990). We did Twister (1996). We did War of the Worlds (2005). We did The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996). It was out of control, just out of control. In the end, "Sliders" wasn't the worst experience I ever had. I was just disappointed. Again, I love SF. I'm a passionate believer in "Sliders". The series could have been great. The public always understood that of "Sliders". The public understood that you could go anywhere in the galaxy. The writers, though, would try to graft a Law & Order (1990) story, or something they had done or seen before, onto "Sliders" and just make the characters work around it.

Every time I meet little boys and girls I do get asked about Sallah. Generally, the line is, "Can we have 10 or 15 of your autographs to trade at school?" Even 10 or 15 of mine are not really enough to get one Harrison Ford. But I enjoy acting. It's not that I begin to think I'm getting better. I now fully know that I've made no improvement whatsoever since I was 20. I can live with it.

The context of being a dangerous actor is in drama. You should feel that a person is capable of doing dangerous things to you or to the other characters. I really don't have much much time for people who imagine that danger is confined to hitting cameramen off stage and getting drunk.

Villians are a lot of fun. My villains have a lot of tongue-in-cheek. They are sometimes conscious of and a little bit gleeful of their villainy. But I actually despise certain forms of villainy. In England, we have a class of villain that's very proud of itself. I've found them totally uncharming. I'm not the slightest bit impressed by how he has robbed a bank, how he has killed someone. I only once played a real villain. He was based on the life of a real man. I really didn't like him. I played him for what he was worth, which was a bullying, cowardly, malevolent, treacherous son-of-a-bitch. Although he had a measure of charm -- the little shit.

Tolkien knew that civilization is worth fighting for. There are times when a generation is challenged and must fight to defend their civilization from annihilation.

Fundamental Islamism is a particularly brutish and unpleasant form of fascism.

You introduce a Republican to another in Hollywood, it's like a meeting between two Christians in Caligula's Rome.

Not to sound like I'm bragging, but I'm a pretty damn good character actor.

We give them actually 55 bucks of entertainment for every five they spend. Then we had George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford, who was determined after playing Han Solo to become the most iconic action film star of all time. It was amazing watching him manipulating and developing the character to the point all you have to see is his silhouette and you know who it is. My respect for Harrison has grown over the years as I've watched him grow into the definitive film star of his generation.

You have a much longer career as a character actor.

Many do not understand how precarious Western civilization is and what a joy it is. From it, we get real democracy. From it, we get the sort of intellectual tolerance that allows me to propound something that may be completely alien to you. I'm burying my career so substantially in these interviews that it's painful. But I think there are some questions that demand honest answers.

There is a demographic catastrophe happening in Europe that nobody wants to talk about, that we daren't bring up because we are so cagey about not offending people racially. And rightly we should be. But there is a cultural thing as well. By 2020, 50 per cent of the children in Holland under the age of 18 will be of Muslim descent. I think that Tolkien says that some generations will be challenged. And if they do not rise to meet that challenge, they will lose their civilisation. That does have a real resonance with me.

I cannot tell you how many people I have met that have said "Oh, by the way, I studied archaeology at University" or "I became an archaeologist largely because of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)." And I still meet youngsters who are going up to read archaeology and history at University because of Raiders.

(On returning for The Hobbit trilogy) I've already been asked and to be honest with you, I wouldn't. I have already completely ruled it out. There's a sentimental part of me that would love to be involved again. Really I am not sure my face can take that sort of punishment any more." He added that this time around "They've got a different set of problems... because you've got 13 dwarves, a whole band of them... You're trying to represent a whole race... You're trying to do for dwarves what 'The Lord of the Rings' did for hobbits.