Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I think Dan Brown is a terribly bad writer, but he has cliff-hangers after every chapter which makes you continue reading.
It's not in the tradition: not even the schoolkids have hot lunches in Norway. They bring a couple of sandwiches from home.
I really enjoy being part of the Marvel Universe. It's a cool bunch of people to work with, and they know what they're doing.
Everybody thinks I'm so serious and the dark side is very accessible to me, so of course it's a challenge to do something funny.
The Sermon on the Mount is a very nice piece about being good, but most of the Bible is a very revengeful, childish, brutal God.
Very often, it's the director that I'm attracted to. If it's a really good director, I don't even have to read the script to say yes.
I wanted to be a man who travelled the world to make peace. I didn't realise that most diplomats are megaphones for their governments.
I've been offered a lot of police series, but I'm very good at staying away from them. They're usually based on such a boring formula.
I've made six films for Disney, and they have a clause in their contracts called the morality clause that I've always refused to sign.
One of the beauties of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' is the very delicate and strange relationship between the two main characters.
I've done so many sex scenes in my life and it's much easier to do a funny sex scene than a sex scene that is supposed to look like it feels.
Maybe there is something specifically Scandinavian that comes out of the long, dark winters - you have to learn to laugh at misery, in a way.
My preparation for roles are less about the character's profession than who they are, what their dreams are, and in what way are they childish.
The first time I did a big American film, I was surprised by all the different financiers who came to the set and told the director what to do.
When you work with someone you don't quite know, you have to figure the director out and you can come up with ideas that are counter-productive.
Even with limited success as an actor, you usually have a more interesting life than in many other professions, so it's not an unreasonable choice.
I've worked with Lars von Trier on many films, and there's always a female character that's like an open wound - everything just pours out of this person.
All male roles are written in a way where you just hide what's going on inside you, and all female roles are written in a way where they expose everything.
I played a heap of snow in a school play. I was under a sheet, and crawled out when spring came. I often say I'll never reach the same artistic level again.
I mean... mankind has for hundreds of years known that torture is not a very smart way to get information. It's horrible that we're going back to medieval times.
Any society that starts forbidding certain words or expressions is a society you should be wary about, whether it's the KGB or social consensus that enforces it.
I'm in Stockholm in my office. I just got here after seeing my eighth child on an ultrasound, so I'm in a good mood. It's beautiful: an energetic little skeleton.
There will always be storytelling, whether it's on the big silver screen, or it's your television or your iPhone or whatever, people will keep on telling stories.
My parents were rather unconventional and did not accept rules unless they thought they were defendable. They were atheists when Sweden was a very Christian country.
I am not only lucky to be an actor, but I am lucky to be one of the most privileged actors in the world because I can do all kinds of films and genres and everything.
I think I was 13 years old when my father put in my hands 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.' It was the first real adult book I ever read, and it opened a new world.
I was the eldest of five children, and although I never saw myself as any kind of leader, as the eldest, like it or not, you have some power inherent in that position.
Some actors are what I call more like mirror actors, which means that they do a performance at home in front of the mirror, and then they go deliver it. I'm not that type.
It's really nice to go down to an extremely low-budget movie, but that is very daring and courageous and try something different, where the roles usually are more complicated.
When you work in Norway, you actually have to have a contract about lunches because Norwegians don't eat lunch normally, so they just throw out a loaf of bread and some coldcuts.
I can say yes to some directors without even reading a script. But the first-time directors I've worked with, the scripts have not been perfect, but they had something that I liked.
Actors are different. Some actors play themselves very successfully, but I come from the theater. Having done Shakespeare, we sometimes did three or four characters in the same play.
Of course, working with Halle Berry is fantastic. Every day, you're looking at a performance that you would be prepared to pay to watch. She's truly great and truthful, and it's a joy.
It's good to pay high taxes - you have free schools, free universities. It's a much more decent society than those where everybody pays their own way, and some people don't get anything.
My father used to stress that he valued us all as individuals, but that no one in the world was worth more or less than anyone else. This was a good principle to establish in a large family.
I'm not always happy when Hollywood does remakes of films, but that's usually when they have a very, very, very good film, and they take away anything controversial from it and make flatter.
I'm not always happy when Hollywood does remakes of films, but that's usually, when they have a very, very, very good film and they take away anything controversial from it and make flatter.
The difference between an experienced director and a new director is not as big as the difference between individual directors, the temperament they have, and the things they're interested in.
When Lars Von Trier calls me, I say yes without reading the script because often the script hasn't been written yet, and if Fincher called me again, I'd say yes without reading the script, too.
Shooting should not be about delivering something I've prepared; it should be a live process of finding things out. When things happen that you haven't planned, that's when the film comes alive.
All directors have their strengths and weaknesses, as all actors have, and all artists. What you try to do is complete the relationship and take care of the stuff that the director won't take care of.
For 'Avengers,' in the Albuquerque desert, we shot New York there. And I was standing on a platform, nine feet high... and it was the rooftop of a skyscraper in New York. And it was all desert around me!
You have to make sure that you find projects that are not too similar and roles that are not too similar, so the challenges are new and you still learn things. I still think I can become a much better actor.
It's fun to play characters with a past, but it's also fun to play any role that is what I would call a 'pressure cooker' kind of character, where the lid is on, and it's left to simmer throughout the movie.
I grew up in a family where you were allowed to say anything; you were allowed to show weakness... I have no problems talking about anything, basically. But at the same time, I know I'm different than a woman.
The distribution systems and the cinemas have adopted to the blockbusters, and they now get their main income from selling popcorn, and if you don't make a film that sells popcorn, it's very hard to get it out there.
The core to what makes Fincher really interesting - all the technique and all that, that is not in the center even if it's a big big part - what is in the center is the characters, and he really is interested in that.
Even if you're the President of the United States, you still act like a little child and think like a little child sometimes. Childish behavior is what I look for in all of my characters because that is what makes them human.
It's a disease we have that we think that everything is explainable. It's a merchandising idea because you can sell explanations and cures for everything, but it doesn't work like that. It's very hard to understand everything.
Norway is a small country, about half the size of Sweden, but it has a very good film climate because they have municipal cinemas, so even in the smallest towns you have a cinema that shows art house films from all over the world.