Top 103 Quotes & Sayings by Max von Sydow
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Swedish actor Max von Sydow.
Last updated on December 21, 2024.
There are those who want to believe but can't, and there are those who believe as children and it's no problem for them at all.
In this country, you have movie actors and theatre actors and television actors.
Bergman has a very special eye for people. His background taught him to listen and to feel.
Producers are not gamblers. They want a good return on their investment.
In a theater, the part is mine and I can control it as I want to. In the movies, I don't have direct contact, and I am fighting technical machinery.
A vacation spot out of season always has a very special magic.
The idea of working with Steven Spielberg was very attractive. He's such a master. He knows the language of the camera and of filmmaking, which gives him a great freedom.
All my life I've been looking for diversity.
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.
No doubt, the most important thing in my career was my time with Mr. Bergman, with whom I worked in so many films and also in so many stage productions, so it was a continuous working relationship and also a friendship, of course, that lasted for so many years.
I would love to do parts I have never done before, but unfortunately, if you have had success in a particular type of character, the casting agents think, 'Oh! We'll have something exactly like that.' It's very boring.
Unfortunately, not all stories end positively.
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.
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.
Sometimes you become friends with the characters you portray.
I'm getting too old to play some parts, but I'm still greedy.
Most screenplays I receive are boring, and some are straight-out bad.
I'm an actor; I'm not a director.
Film work can be very interesting, but it also can be awfully boring because who creates the film? The actors? No. It is the director. It's his piece of work.
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.
The offers I get are for grandfathers, uncles - and they often die very quickly in the script.
New York is a fascinating city. I think it's a very inspiring city, but it's overpowering when you get older. It tires me now. But it's wonderful for young people - very inspiring and full of surprises and full of ideas.
I accept a role only if it's something I really, really like.
Filming is repetition and many takes.
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.
Only very rarely are foreigners or first-generation immigrants allowed to be nice people in American films. Those with an accent are bad guys.
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.
I think English is a fantastic, rich and musical language, but of course your mother tongue is the most important for an actor.
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.
I understand German; I can read German.
I'm not in retirement. I just don't want to work so much, and I don't get that many offers any more.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
When I finished the role of Christ, I felt as though I'd been let out on parole. A man who has served 18 months isn't eager to go back to prison.
My parents were brought up in families which believed theatre people weren't to be trusted. But they were nice people.
Italians are great improvisers. If something unforeseen happens, they throw up their hands, and they adjust.
During my military service, I performed a sketch in which I played a flea called Max. So when critics kept misspelling my name, I decided to change it and thought, 'Ah! Max!'
To me, part of the fascinating profession of acting is to participate in all these strange situations, to try to understand all these interesting characters, fictitious or real, their human nature... It's extraordinarily fascinating.
What is important, I think, is to reach as many people as you can and do it as well as you can. Reach them and inspire them or amuse them, or maybe in some odd moments help them to discover something they hadn't thought of before.
You cannot study acting in books. Do it, do it, do it. And watch good actors. See what they are doing and how they are doing it. You have to practically participate, I think, in order to develop yourself.
The more I had to act like a saint, the more I felt like being a sinner.
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.
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.
Playing the role of Christ was like being in a prison. It was the hardest part I've ever had to play in my life. I couldn't smoke or drink in public. I couldn't.
Awards are lovely and always welcome.
It often disturbs me, when I see a film set in a historical time, that the people are too modern.
I just feel I shouldn't work too much, because there are so many other things to do.
My father was a professor of folklore, and my mother was a teacher until she was married. I had a good relationship with them, and the only argument we had was when I went to university and wanted to go into the theater instead of studying to be a lawyer.
I owe Mr. Bergman so much.
Spielberg knows his craft so well, he can also improvise, and that is a lot of fun.
Perhaps I scare people. I don't know why.
I would like to do 'King Lear.' But I would like to do it in Swedish.
If Jesus came back today, and saw what was going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up.
I've never been in a barroom brawl in my life. I just don't do such things.
I think it's good that we're sometimes reminded of important events in history.
In Hollywood they usually cast me as villains or priests.
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?'
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