Udo Kier Quotes - Page 2

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People often say to me, especially people from the press: 'Oh, you are so evil.' But I'm a gardener. I rescue animals in Palm Springs where I live.

I'm not an ensemble actor, because it's always a lot of ego when you're all together in the scene. It's kind of intellectual fighting for something.

When I'm depressed and the weather is bad I look up my page on IMDb and I have my coffee and feel better. There are even films on there I don't know about!

I think it's important for a filmmaker to know his actors, because you have to work so closely together and you have to like them or you'll have a horrible time.

Artistically I like to do short-term things. Like I do a lot of commercials, I have the Miller commercial out where I play the Devil in Hell, where Hell is frozen.

For me to do interviews is painful. People don't know that. To do an interview is going back in time. And to go back in time, maybe it wasn't all the time that good.

Frankenstein' was more programmed, but 'Dracula' we did as it came along because at the beginning we weren't sure how it was going to end - it wasn't written in the script.

In 'House of Boys,' I wanted to be in drag. It was amazing to be in the middle of all these drag queens. They did my makeup. I hardly recognized myself! That was very funny.

There's actors and actresses who I call 'Trailer Stars' because their importance is expressed by how big their trailers are. And then there are real actors, who are real good people.

I like to work with directors where you feel they make the movies not for the audience, but make them for themselves. They don't care if it's a success financially. That's what I like.

When you start in movie business... It is a business, actually. Nothing to do with art. Picasso is art, and Giacometti, but film acting is no art. Just the luck of being discovered, maybe.

The Bible is wonderful. It's only one book, but you can put two grams of coke on top of the Bible, and you first take a line of coke and then you open the Bible. Because then you understand.

My agent is a vampire, my lawyer is a vampire, they're all vampires, but they don't suck your blood, they take your money! Vampires are everywhere. It just depends what they're running after.

With these kinds of figures you can do whatever you want as an actor because there are no guidelines, there are no real vampires. Except in Los Angeles, where everybody's a vampire, you know?

There are certain people who I worked with, Pamela Anderson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, they are figures. And they know this. They don't pretend to be good actors. They were made by the industry into figures.

I love the smell of the Earth. I'm a good cook my friends say. I love cooking for my friends. So I'm totally the opposite of being evil. I think only if you're a good person can you be very evil onscreen.

It's logical when you become known to the industry with 'Dracula' and 'Frankenstein' that they typecast you and want you in their horror movies. That's how I got 'Blade,' of course, because they were fans.

I have no time for real horses, so I have a plastic horse. Large size. Called Max Von Sydow. For photographs it looks real. If I do a photo shoot and it stands in the background, you think it's a horse. A horse is a horse.

I like 'Brawl in Cell Block 99.' I think Vince Vaughn is incredible and I've never seen Don Johnson like that. It is very realistic. Some people say it is a horror film. It is not a horror film at all. It is very realistic.

I learned something, when you have Nazi uniform on, why people were so evil and used their power. Because it's a very powerful uniform, it's like boots and black and silver and skeletons everywhere, on your hat, on your shoulder.

Evil has no limits. If you are a good person, everybody expects you to be good. If you are very good then you become Albert Schweitzer or Mother Theresa. Then you're very good because you are helping people. But evil has no limits.

Sometimes I get a script that says, 'Only you can play it.' But I like roles in films with little moments - a hand movement in 'Melancholia.' I don't like the big speeches - the 'Oscar speech.' I like to do unusual things on screen.

I don't like to work with directors who have taken an adoption from another script writer, because it's too much: one of them writes it and then has to explain it to the other, or maybe the director sees it in a way the writer doesn't want it.

The interesting part about 'Iron Sky' was crowdfunding. It was financed in a very special new way. Timo Vuorensola is an amazing, concentrated person who was able to make this comedy. When I saw the film for the first time, I liked it very much.

I have a lot of palm trees, because they say to me holidays and ocean. I grew up very poor and I had an aunt who would go on holiday and send me postcards of palm trees and I would pin them to the wall, so I've gone from that fantasy to reality.

I remember when I worked with Fassbinder in Germany, actors wrote letters to him. But you see, a director wants to discover you himself. He doesn't want the actor to say, 'oh, I'd love to work with you' - the actor says that to other people, too.

I made films, like 'Shadow of the Vampire,' and I did not like the work I did on it and then Willem Dafoe was nominated for the Oscar. I made films like 'The Adventures of Pinocchio' with Martin Landau. I thought I would get nominated and it flopped. You never know.

I'm very laid-back, and I meet people just by accident - never through agencies or anything like that. I met Paul Morrissey, who directed me in 'Dracula' and 'Frankenstein,' on a plane from Rome to Munich. He asked for my telephone number and wrote it in his passport.

In Hollywood, they make movies like they make washing machines. It's a business. In Europe, the films are considered art. No producer would ever tell a director where to cut a film or how to re-write the script. I love Hollywood, but all of the time I have to go back to Europe.

I'll tell you what a friendship is to me. Friendship to me is, if my friends need my little finger to live, I'm going to have it cut off. I'm going to the hospital, they cut off my finger, and maybe I have a gold finger instead, and I become famous. But I still give it to my friend.

I had such a horrible childhood. My father was already married with three children when I was born and my mother didn't know. So we grew up poor. We had no hot water until I was 17. I went to work in a factory, and worked and saved for months until I had the money to come to England.

I'm coming from an artistic background, from Europe, making films with Lars Van Trier like 'Breaking the Waves,' 'Dancer in the Dark,' all his films, 'The Kingdom.' But I like both, I like the totally artificial, commercial films where the actor has five or six bodyguards, I like that.

The first day of shooting came, and of course I was nervous. I would lie if I said I wasn't impressed. I mean, Lars von Trier hiring me to be the king in 'Medea'... Lars said, 'Stop! Stop!' And I was so nervous, I turned around and said, 'What is it?' He said, '... Just be a tired king.'

I made so many films I thought were great and they turned out horrible, and I made films I did not believe in at all, and 'Shadow Of The Vampire' was one of these films I did not believe in during the shooting. And then when I saw it I was surprised what they had made out of it. They edited for quite a long time.

I mean, if you are director like Lars Von Trier who is able to get actors on a table like Lauren Bacall, Ben Gazzara, James Caan, Nicole Kidman, Chloe Sevigny, Stellan Skarsgard, Udo Kier, all in the self-service situation in the same room, the same trailer, no money, then you must have something that everybody accepts.

Gus van Sant I met at the Berlin film festival, and he came up to me. He had a little film in the festival called 'Mala Noche' that he had made for $20,000. He said: 'You are one of my favourite actors. I'm doing 'My Own Private Idaho' with River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves. You should be in it!' Then I started working with Gus.

People never understand what a friendship is. I'll tell you what a friendship is to me. Friendship to me is, if my friends need my little finger to live, I'm going to have it cut off. I'm going to the hospital, they cut off my finger, and maybe I have a gold finger instead, and I become famous. But I still give it to my friend.

Werner Herzog, I knew him for so many years, when Fassbinder was at his highest moment. But we had a rule: An actor from Fassbinder could never work with an actor of Werner Herzog or Wim Wenders. Because if we would have done that, we would have been spies. "Ah, you worked with Werner - how was it? How did he direct you?" I was Fassbinder's actor.

Werner Herzog, I knew him for so many years, when Fassbinder was at his highest moment. But we had a rule: An actor from Fassbinder could never work with an actor of Werner Herzog or Wim Wenders. Because if we would have done that, we would have been spies. 'Ah, you worked with Werner - how was it? How did he direct you?' I was Fassbinder's actor.

If you go into a forest of film stories, you never can get right through the forest straight ahead; you always have to make some U-turns or whatever, because there's some trees in the way. And that's what I'm doing. Sometimes, as an actor, if you make only these intellectual, wonderful films, which I love, from time to time you have to make a film like Armageddon so people see that you're still around.

Now the time comes that I decided I only will do art films, basically. In a way, very similar to Isabella Rossellini. I prefer to work only with people like Lars von Trier or Guy Maddin or Gus Van Sant, just to name a few. But also there's bills to pay, and sometimes you have to make a movie. So my decision from now on is art movies, or movies which are commercial, but for real money. That is my decision.

The actor's always as good as the stories are. And so many important things, there is the light, there is the costumes, the makeup, there's the text, there's so many elements which the actor himself cannot control. But the script is the most important thing. First of all the story, and then you go from there. You know, it's like you stand in the kitchen, and say are we making a fish or do we grill a steak? And you go from there.

The vampire or the bad guy, that's what people do remember. Lars von Trier, like Guy Maddin, their films are made for a group of exclusive people who like special films. And they are special films, they are art films. And I started with commercial films at the beginning, and later on, because you know, when you are an actor, you have the same cliché like everybody else, you want to be in big films, you want to be known and all that.

I like torture. Torture is photogenic. If you make horror movies, you always have to think what's photogenic and what's not. If you stay home with the candlelight and you read a book, Rilke, or whatever, or Sigmund Freud, it's boring. But if you watch Udo Kier in a horror film and people are hunting me and trying to kill me, and there's my love interest with big breasts and beautiful hair, and I believe in her and they kill me at the end, that's more interesting. We're talking about films here. We're not talking about writing stories.

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