Top 50 Brando Quotes

I have grown up watching Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Dev Anand, Amitabh Bachchan and the likes. These are actors who have changed with time. They have no shelf-life. They have immortalised themselves because they have evolved with time.

I’ve worked with wonderful actors like Marlon Brando and Henry Fonda.

The thing about Brando was that I’d make these directions, and he’d walk away. He’d heard enough… to get the machine going.

Someone I met years ago explained to me the difference between a personality and an actor, a personality being Eddie Murphy or Roseanne Barr, and an actor being Morgan Freeman and Alfre Woodard or Marlon Brando.

Next to my husband, and along with Marlon Brando, I think that Yves Montand is the most attractive man I’ve ever met.

I love Marlon Brando. Never seem him bad, just less good.

When I think about my great conversations with Marlon Brando on the set of ‘Morituri,’ I think there’s a story there, just as I do with my experience working with James Cameron on ‘Titanic.’ And then there are all my years on ‘Y&R’ and all that has happened there.

Working with Brando was fun. It was like a tennis match. We played unbelievably well together.

When I can focus on something like guitar or painting, I do. I started painting people I admire, like Kerouac, Bob Dylan, Nelson Algren, Marlon Brando, Patti Smith, my girl, my kids.

At fourteen or fifteen, I decided to earn my living when I grew up playing drums made from wooden beer kegs and leading a group called Keg Brando and His Kegliners. We organized a little band, but it didn’t last long and didn’t make any money.

I was in a movie with Marlon Brando. Now, I didn’t have any scenes with Marlon Brando, but I had scenes with Martin Sheen and was around Dennis Hopper, who was a child actor in the studio system and was enamored of James Dean, as was Martin, and they were all sort of disciples of Brando.

I’ve tried like hell to make bad movies good, and I can’t. Maybe Marlon Brando has been able to do that at times. But even he has a hard time making ‘The Appaloosa’ a good movie.

‘Whatever it takes’ is my opinion of method acting and, indeed, any other kind of acting. Look at Brando and De Niro. But it’s not my cup of tea.

I had life threats, because people accused me of approaching Brando as God and his son was Jesus. I literally had people saying my blood would run in the streets for doing that.

Anyone of my generation who tells you he hasn’t ‘done Brando’ is lying.

My biggest influences as an actor were Marlon Brando, and I really dug James Dean.

Marlon Brando changed everything for actors. After him, everyone wanted to be Marlon. No one wanted to be a type: they all wanted to display versatility in every role.

Growing up, I loved films like ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and ‘On the Waterfront’ and became a huge fan of Marlon Brando.

But to this day I am convinced that the real reason we met was because Alexander is from Nebraska, and he was completely fascinated that I was about to go off and make a movie with Brando – perhaps the most famous Nebraskan of all.

If Brando can do Capote and I can do Brando – well then, I can do Capote.

When I think of character actors, I think of Spencer Tracy; I think of Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall. When I was a young lad watching films, my eyes were on them – watching ‘On the Waterfront,’ my eyes are on Rod Steiger and Karl Malden, not on Brando.

As a kid I decided that a Canadian accent doesn’t sound tough. I thought guys should sound like Marlon Brando. So now I have a phony accent that I can’t shake, so it’s not phony anymore.

It was just the thrill of a lifetime. Brando and Hackman were two of my heroes.

I love Marlon Brando and James Dean. That was when it was all about the star and the script. Nowadays, everything has to be action-packed.

I would have to say honestly I was very pleased to be in a film whether it was good or bad with De Niro, Norton and Brando even if I don’t have any scenes with them, I thought it was pretty good company to keep.

When I was in high school in the ’50s you were supposed to be an Elvis Presley, a James Dean, a Marlon Brando or a Kingston Trio type in a button-down shirt headed for the fraternities at Stanford or Cal.

‘The Simpsons’ is like Charlie Parker or Marlon Brando or Richard Pryor: Comedy couldn’t go back to the way it was after ‘The Simpsons’ came out.

Marlon Brando. The finest actor who ever lived. He was my idol when I was 13. He’s done enough work to last two lifetimes. Everything I do, I think: Can Brando play this with me?

I think of myself as a journeyman actor. I’ve got some talent and I work hard, but people like Brando or Pacino – those people are touched by God.

If I am duly compared to Marlon Brando at all, well, I can only think of The Teahouse of the ‘Shanghai Noon,’ that they’re comparing me to that!

The first time I met Brando was on a street corner. I was 14. He was walking down the street, and I saw him coming, and I thought, ‘It’s Marlon Brando.’ And he was wearing what turned out to be his outfit from ‘On the Waterfront,’ because he was shooting.

I was doing the work I was capable of doing with my own native talent, but when I looked at actors like Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean, Kim Stanley, and Geraldine Page, I knew that they knew something that I didn’t know. I wanted to find out what that was.

Everyone’s inspired by Brando. When I started acting, my dad showed me ‘On the Waterfront,’ and I thought, ‘That’s the coolest guy I’ve ever seen.’

When I grew into a teenager, I became obsessed with Marlon Brando, Montgomery Cliff, and James Dean.

I’d like to win an Oscar and then refuse it so I can protest the way they’ve treated Marlon Brando.

I loved Marlon Brando: my favorite actor.

Sometimes you read things that people don’t even notice in a performance, that you just are moved by or understand that this actor is really living his or her life on the screen. The first time I realized that was when I watched Brando in ‘On the Waterfront.’

When I got the job on ‘Cursed Child,’ I was doing another show in the West End, and I was playing a part that Marlon Brando had played.

I joined Spandau Ballet not because I wanted to be the best musician in the world, but because I wanted to be Elvis Presley, Marlon Brando.

One of Brando’s problems is that he can’t have a conversation with anyone.

Brando’s a family friend. His mother gave my father a shot to be in a play at the Omaha Community Playhouse. That was the first production he was in.

Actors are always identified with certain parts. To some, Marlon Brando will always be the Godfather. That’s just how it is, whether the character happens to be your own personal favorite role or not. You can’t ever get away from it.

Sometimes you wanna be James Bond, and sometimes you wanna be Marlon Brando until you realize you can’t be either!

I admired Marlon Brando as I grew up. I though he was one of the finest screen actors around.

My dad was my hero when I was a young boy. And then it’s a toss-up between Han Solo, the New Zealand All Blacks Rugby team, and Marlon Brando.

All I did as a child was pretend to be James Bond or Marlon Brando. When I was about four, I put on my dad’s work boots and went up and down the street with his walking stick pretending to be Charlie Chaplin.

To this day, people are still talking about the Coral Casino’s parties of the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s – complete with antidotes of Errol Flynn’s swan dives, Marlon Brando’s secret cigar smoking spots, and Ester Williams’ Aquacades.

In fact, I think I have had a ghost in my house. Although not active lately, unexplainable things would happen and the kitties were particularly sensitive – especially, Marlon Brando… the cat not the man.

I never thought of acting as a creative process. Christ, I used to go to the movies and see Brando talking like he was trying to sell shoes, and he was great. I thought anybody could do it. Then I tried it, and I got so uptight, I’m limited as to what I can do on film.

Acting is all about big hair and funny props… All the great actors knew it. Olivier knew it, Brando knew it.