Top 44 Max von Sydow Quotes

I remember those days with Bergman with great nostalgia. We were aware that the films were going to be quite important, and the work felt meaningful.

We should look back now and then. Our politicians should look back every now and then.

Mr. Bergman was a man of great working discipline. He forced everyone to concentrate when it was important. No disturbing noise during rehearsal. A code of silence.

It’s important to me to work in my own language now and then. I love English, but you can never learn to master a foreign language if you’re not brought up with it.

If Jesus came back today, and saw what was going on in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.

I don’t believe in devils. Indifference and misunderstandings can create evil situations. Most of the time, people who appear to be evil are really victims of evil deeds.

The more I had to act like a saint, the more I felt like being a sinner.

When I was brought up in Sweden, there was a great opportunity for young people to learn how to act in our municipal theaters with their small companies. You would be under contract for eight months and have the summer free to take other opportunities.

Bergman was courageous in choosing people to do things that they themselves might not expect to play.

Between you and me, odd things happen always on set.

My parents were brought up in families which believed theatre people weren’t to be trusted. But they were nice people.

The studio rented a house for my wife in Los Angeles under a phony name to keep reporters away. Whenever I wanted to visit her and my children, I would have to sneak in the back door after dark.

Playing Christ, I began to feel shut away from the world. A newspaper became one of my biggest luxuries. I noticed that some of my close friends began treating me with reverence.

Spielberg knows his craft so well, he can also improvise, and that is a lot of fun.

Film acting, if you don’t play the lead, you come, and you do your scenes in a few days, and you act with a couple of colleagues. All the rest of the actors you never see, and you don’t even meet many of them. And you don’t know what will happen with what you’ve done. Maybe it will be in the film, maybe it will not.

I was in such a hurry to be an actor. Now I’m sometimes mad at myself that I didn’t stop and study for a couple of years.

Bergman has a very special eye for people. His background taught him to listen and to feel.

Movies give me an opportunity to go places. I’m not only a Swede but an American, not just a man of my time, but I’ve been living 2,000 years ago-and not just in a new country, America, but in the Holy Land, too.

I owe Mr. Bergman so much.

Mr. Bergman had a great imagination and saw the possibilities within every one of his actors, and he gave us great challenges. It was very inspiring.

Human beings are human beings whether they speak or not.

If people ask me, ‘For you, what is your most important film?’ I have a feeling that they all sort of want me to answer with one of the Bergman films. But I cannot choose.

I think it’s good that we’re sometimes reminded of important events in history.

I just feel I shouldn’t work too much, because there are so many other things to do.

Sometimes you remember more about the location where you shot the film than the film itself.

I find it very hard to take myself seriously.

Only very rarely are foreigners or first-generation immigrants allowed to be nice people in American films. Those with an accent are bad guys.

I’m not in retirement. I just don’t want to work so much, and I don’t get that many offers any more.

Filming is repetition and many takes.

Nobody told me there was any idea for a sequel to ‘The Exorcist.’ But my agent called me to tell me they were going to do it, and there was a part for me. I said, ‘But I died in the first film.’ ‘Well,’ he told me, ‘this is from the early days of Father Merrin’s life.’ I told him I just didn’t want to do it again.

When I know what the character I’m supposed to play wants in general terms, and when I know what did the other characters want to do, that’s when all these wills collide and the emotions show up.

I would like to do ‘King Lear.’ But I would like to do it in Swedish.

Italians are great improvisers. If something unforeseen happens, they throw up their hands, and they adjust.

I accept a role only if it’s something I really, really like.

I think English is a fantastic, rich and musical language, but of course your mother tongue is the most important for an actor.

I began imagining scenes in public which some drunk would come up to me and slap me in the face. Nothing like that ever happened, but I often wonder if I would have turned the other cheek.

In Hollywood they usually cast me as villains or priests.

The most difficult part of playing Christ was that I had to keep up the image around the clock. As soon as the picture finished, I returned home to Sweden and tried to find my old self. It took six months to get back to normal.

I admired Stephen Daldry very much; I think he’s a brilliant director, and also, I feel close to him because he has a lot of theater behind him. He’s also a man of great imagination and a lovely sense of humor.

It’s not a matter of learning lines. It’s a matter of getting into the ideas and the will of the person. It’s a matter of, ‘What does he want to do? What does he want to achieve?’

All of us, we deserve to survive.

There are many documentary filmmakers who have a tough time because they don’t really get what they need to do what they want. There are so many people with good visions that should be encouraged and helped. And they will deliver, I’m sure.

Hiroshima has become a metaphor not just for nuclear war but for war and destruction and violence toward civilians. It’s not just the idea we should not use nuclear arms. We should not start another war because it’s madness.

A vacation spot out of season always has a very special magic.