Quotes

You meet a better class of people in pubs.

I do not live in the world of sobriety.

My only regret is that I didn't drink every pub dry and sleep with every woman on the planet.

I believe that my woman shouldn't work outside the home. When I come home and I'm tired from filming all day, I expect her to be there and make sure that everything is cool for me. You know, like drawing my bath and helping me into bed. That's the kind of job she had and, in return for it, she can bear my children and if any man talks bad to her, I'll hit him.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) was about the only time I've been allowed to do what I want with a part. You can be over-directed by people, but Terry [Terry Gilliam] let me have my own way. There was a scene we rehearsed on Saturday where we really hit our stride. When we resumed, Terry said on the Sunday, "You seemed to be having much more fun with the character yesterday. Could you take it a bit further? I didn't need to be told twice! Once I realized I could get away with it, off I went!

There is, of course, a world of difference between cricket and the movie business . . . I suppose doing a love scene with Raquel Welch roughly corresponds to scoring a century before lunch.

American men like their women to have these special teeth and be perfectly coiffured and have amazing breasts. Have you seen an Italian mama with those kinds of teeth, that kind of hair, and that kind of waist? They're not like that. They're in the kitchen cooking for their families - doing what they should do. I believe my woman shouldn't work outside the home.

I also use women as a sex object; maybe I'm kinky. However, I like to talk to them as well.

I like the effect drink has on me. What's the point of staying sober?

I'm the biggest star this country has got, destroy me and you destroy the whole British film industry.

Richard Burton was hitting the bottle with Jimmy Hurt the night before his death. He knew it was going to kill him, but he did not stop. I don't have a drink problem. But if that was the case and doctors told me I would have to stop, I'd like to think I would be brave enough to drink myself into the grave.

Life shouldn't be about sitting around staring at frosted glass. Life should be lived and that's all there is to it.

Nicholson [Jack Nicholson]? As far as I'm concerned, he's a balding midget. He stands five-foot-seven, you know. He tries to play heavies and doesn't quite make it.

I'm not a villain. I've never hurt anyone. I'm just a tawdry character who explodes now and again.

I like to give my inhibitions a bath now and then.

I do think a carpenter needs a good hammer to bang on the wall.

I have made many serious statements -- I just can't remember any of them. I guess they mustn't have been very important.

I have two ambitions in life: one is to drink every pub dry, the other is to sleep with every woman on earth.

Once a pirate, always a pirate. I'm a buccaneer - a bucco - through and through. I'm the same old Ollie I was years ago. Ollie Reed doesn't change.

My acting school was, and still is, life in the raw - the whole wide world as a stage. I didn't go into a shop full of mirrors, I stayed outside and gazed at the reflections of life. I've got a lot of performances stored away at the back of my mind, ready to come out in front of the cameras when they are needed.

I was disappointed in Sonja Henie. Her legs were muscle-bound and unattractive and didn't give me the urge to give her one.

At one point I would have liked the role of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (1970). Then I saw it done by Laurence Olivier on television and he was so good that I decided to forget about it.

[on The Devils (1971)] It vividly shows a side of the church that was never scrutinized attentively or even less accepted. The film shows that the monarchy can be weak, that the church can be corrupt, that society can admit that it has a lot to learn. I think these kinds of things were hidden from audiences for a long time. The masses go to the movies, not the intellectual elites.

I didn't go to acting school, only to normal school. I'm not for acting schools because I suspect that the majority of the teachers are there because they can't find work as actors or because they think they can teach people to act but haven't had much experience themselves in the field. What I mean is that my skepticism derives from the fact that I believe that for an actor it's much more important to learn with the audience . . . the audience is the real teacher and it's the audience that has taught me what I know. The audience's reaction tells me what I need to do, just as the audience's reaction makes you into a first-rate star. It's easy: the important thing is that a sufficient number of people, an audience, in a sufficient number of countries is willing to spend money to go see this actor. At this point the movie producers interfere and ask you to work on this or that film. And then one becomes an actor with international success depending on the public's reaction.

Theatre doesn't interest me. It doesn't interest me because in England theatre means warm gin during intermission, not being able to smoke in the theatre, eat chocolates and try to find out who else is present in order to then greet them in the foyer. Going to this or that theatre premiere is very much an "in" thing to do. But this is only one of the reasons; the second reason is a bit more professional. Logically speaking, I think that for an actor or an actress working in the theatre is boring, but I am not referring to theatre actors who have always worked there, and this my own boring opinion, but because it means reciting the same lines every night six nights a week, not counting matinées . . . boring, don't you think?

I think that the most important achievement of my career was getting paid for something that I really wanted to do.

[on his role as Father Grandier in The Devils (1971)] You would think from the critics' hostility that Ken Russell had tried to pull off some obscene hoax. On the contrary, the film is, I think, an utterly serious attempt to understand the nature of religious and political persecution. It is not in any way exaggerated. If anything, the horrors perpetrated in Loudun in the 17th century were worse than Russell has chosen to show . . . the character of the priest was a marvelous one to act. Ken Russell's brother-in-law is an historian and he helped me research Grandier's life, with particular reference to his thesis in celibacy. The people of Loudun loved him. He walked among the plague victims and comforted them. I started to play him as a priest and realized that he was a politician.

I bluster my way through, and I sing rather like a rugby forward. Tommy (1975) is an amazing visual film and the music is astonishing. I think for anyone to translate The Who's music in terms of images, it must be somebody like [Ken Russell]--or a lunatic!

[on his role as Father Grandier in The Devils (1971)] It was certainly the most difficult and the most strenuous part I have ever played. And I think, quite important.

[on public reaction to The Devils (1971)] I remember noticing the gleam in [Ken Russell's] eye while everybody was working away on the set, so I knew something good was going on. What they said afterward was totally incredible. We were regarded as pornographers in Italy. We'd have been arrested if we went there.

[on directors Michael Winner and Ken Russell] Winner gave me my bread and Russell gave me my art.

[on making The Devils (1971)] It was a difficult and tiring role. I don't think anyone in their right mind would say that they had fun shooting that film. It wasn't created with the intent of having fun or being pleasurable; on the contrary, it was analyzed acutely and made with extreme seriousness. It was definitely a film about a certain society and the things that society did. We tried to show that humans are diabolical or can be as diabolical as in the film. I didn't have fun, it was four months of hard work and if anyone has the courage or the desire to sit his ass down on a firecracker and scream for four months with Ken Russell yelling in your ears, well . . .

[on criticism of The Devils (1971)] It was very disturbing to make. I still haven't got over it... Where do you draw the line? This is the way it happened - those nuns were used for political ends, toted round France as a side show for a year. Do you ignore the actual historical accuracy and the fact that the Church, the politicians and the aristocracy were corrupt? I get so angry with the opinion makers who class it with the sex films. If we ignore history because it was unpleasant we're going to end up with nothing but nature films.

One day I should like to live in Ireland. I love the Irish, the more I see of other races the more I believe the Irish are the only real people left, and apart from that they have space and clear air in which to wander and think and to feel free.

[on claims he only got into movies because of his uncle] I am not a product of nepotism.

Rita Tushingham was not the most fantastically classical beautiful woman that England has ever produced, but she is, and I mean this, fantastic. She's got the pair of eyes that I would like to go swimming in.