Top 30 Christopher Plummer Quotes

My great-grandfather was prime minister of Canada, and I had a very Edwardian upbringing. It was a beautiful, romantic way of growing up, until the family lost its money. And I decided to be bad and rough and find the streets rather than the gates.

I would rather not know about how one gets parts in movies these days.

I was always a happy kid. I’d play the piano fairly well. I did all sorts of things fairly well. But who the hell wants to be happy all the time? It’s a miserable state to be in permanently. Can you imagine how dreary that would be?

I’m used to big roles and lots of words.

Most actors come from the streets, and their rise to fame is guided by a natural anger. It was harder to find that rage coming from a gentle background.

I love trying to give some flesh to rather naked bones sometimes. I’ve always felt it my duty and to try and bring on the character’s off-stage life, what happened that is not revealed.

I didn’t have to keep a bloody journal. It’s terribly boring keeping a journal anyway. I hate it. You spend more time writing down life instead of living it.

In Stratford you either turn into an alcoholic or you better write.

The first time my father saw me in the flesh was on the stage, which is a bit weird. We went out to dinner, and he was charming and sweet, but I did all the talking.

I couldn’t believe when I first got a fan letter from Al Pacino, it was unreal.

I’m insatiably ambitious.

I want to paint Montreal as a rather fantastic city, which it was, because nobody knows today what it was like. And I’m one of the last survivors, or rapidly becoming one.

I think a lot of directors over the years have cast me because they see something of another generation in me: you know, certain people look like they’ve come from the 19th century. Because I have classical background I suppose that is more suitable to patriarchal roles and easily infuses them.

It is a culture voice, but it is a very American culture voice, and I am very used to English culture voice. So I had to work like hell to flatten those R’s.

When I was young, I played the piano and studied classical music and jazz. I wanted to be a concert pianist, and if I’d devoted myself to it, I could have been. But it would have been too much work and a very lonely life.

I was an only child, so I was very demanding. I enjoyed it thoroughly, but I wasn’t very pleasant.

We used to listen to Lionel Barrymore do ‘A Christmas Carol’ on the radio long ago, and I like Reginald Owen, who played Scrooge in the first treatment for the screen. But my favorite Scrooge was Alastair Sim. He was enchanting, an absolutely beautiful performance.

I think anger does fuel a successful acting career. To play the great roles, you have to learn how to blaze.

I’ve done a lot of pictures that are ensemble, and I’ve not always liked the people I was working with, but that doesn’t make any difference because you do the job, and often it turns out to be a great ensemble even if you didn’t particularly really like anybody.

Here is Mike Wallace, who is visible to the public, and I have been watching him since the early ’50s. Smoking up a storm and insulting his guests and being absolutely wonderfully evil and charming too.

Oh, I don’t have any religious beliefs.

Never forget your sense of humour.

I wasn’t thrilled about ‘The Sound Of Music’ – not the movie itself but my role in it. Captain Von Trapp was a bore, and they tried to help by giving it a bit more cynicism, but it wasn’t my favourite role. I enjoyed the music, and I loved Julie Andrews.

I actually was brought up by an Airedale. I don’t really remember my parents, especially my mother. It was only the dog that I saw.

Some of the best casts I’ve ever worked with have been dogs.

The part of Mike Wallace drew me to the movie because I thought, what an outrageous part to play.

They realized I was alive again, even though I was playing an old, dying sop.

I think of being ornate as a Victorian quality, little to do with Shakespeare. But even Dickens wasn’t ornate; he wrote with flow and naturalism.

A lot of people want to retire; I couldn’t. You don’t retire in our business. What, play golf and watch television? Oh, please.

Most of my life I have played a lot of famous people but most of them were dead so you have a poetic license.