I think anger does fuel a successful acting career. To play the great roles, you have to learn how to blaze.
I couldn't believe when I first got a fan letter from Al Pacino, it was unreal.
It is a culture voice, but it is a very American culture voice, and I am very used to English culture voice. So I had to work like hell to flatten those R's.
We used to listen to Lionel Barrymore do 'A Christmas Carol' on the radio long ago, and I like Reginald Owen, who played Scrooge in the first treatment for the screen. But my favorite Scrooge was Alastair Sim. He was enchanting, an absolutely beautiful performance.
Some of the best casts I've ever worked with have been dogs.
In Montreal, when I grew up, I'd go to the Notre-Dame Basilica, a gorgeous cathedral in town. I'd listen to huge symphony orchestras, Pavarotti singing operas; that was absolutely marvelous. I like that aspect of the cathedral, the spectacle.
When I was young, I played the piano and studied classical music and jazz. I wanted to be a concert pianist, and if I'd devoted myself to it, I could have been. But it would have been too much work and a very lonely life.
I think of being ornate as a Victorian quality, little to do with Shakespeare. But even Dickens wasn't ornate; he wrote with flow and naturalism.
I was always a happy kid. I'd play the piano fairly well. I did all sorts of things fairly well. But who the hell wants to be happy all the time? It's a miserable state to be in permanently. Can you imagine how dreary that would be?
My great-grandfather was prime minister of Canada, and I had a very Edwardian upbringing. It was a beautiful, romantic way of growing up, until the family lost its money. And I decided to be bad and rough and find the streets rather than the gates.
I've done a lot of pictures that are ensemble, and I've not always liked the people I was working with, but that doesn't make any difference because you do the job, and often it turns out to be a great ensemble even if you didn't particularly really like anybody.
Most of my life I have played a lot of famous people but most of them were dead so you have a poetic license.
Here is Mike Wallace, who is visible to the public, and I have been watching him since the early '50s. Smoking up a storm and insulting his guests and being absolutely wonderfully evil and charming too.
Working with Julie Andrews is like getting hit over the head with a valentine.
I wasn't thrilled about 'The Sound Of Music' - not the movie itself but my role in it. Captain Von Trapp was a bore, and they tried to help by giving it a bit more cynicism, but it wasn't my favourite role. I enjoyed the music, and I loved Julie Andrews.
I want to paint Montreal as a rather fantastic city, which it was, because nobody knows today what it was like. And I'm one of the last survivors, or rapidly becoming one.
I think a lot of directors over the years have cast me because they see something of another generation in me: you know, certain people look like they've come from the 19th century. Because I have classical background I suppose that is more suitable to patriarchal roles and easily infuses them.
I'm too old-fashioned to use a computer. I'm too old-fashioned to use a quill.
Oh, I don't have any religious beliefs.
I admire Ridley Scott, and I'm thrilled to be making a movie for him.
