Quote

I got used to [ Lars Von Trier] doing the narration for 'Dogville' and 'Manderley.' And I said to him I do these narrations for you but you never put me in a film! So he called my bluff and put me in 'Melancholia' and I was thrilled about that.

John Hurt

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John Hurt
Age: 77 †
Born: 1940
Born: January 22
Died: 2017
Died: January 27
Actor
Character Actor
Explorer
Film Actor
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Voice Actor
John Vincent Hurt
Sir John Vincent Hurt
Sir John Hurt
Bluff
Bluffs
Narration
Thrilled
Called
Film
Trier
Used
Lars
Never
Melancholia

More quotes by John Hurt

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The truth is rarely true and never simple.
John Hurt
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Be true to what you want to say, or whatever style it is that you've chosen or genre you've chosen. Do it well! My criteria always has been that the piece must stand the chance of succeeding on the level it's intended to succeed on.
John Hurt
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I think [ Lars Von Trier] is a fantastic filmmaker. No question. You've got to be ready for him. He's sharp and he's got a sharp tongue and I love that. He doesn't mind it back.
John Hurt
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The British tradition, basically, is to go to the character. And the Hollywood tradition, shall we say, is basically to take the character to the performer.
John Hurt
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It would be difficult to have any unfulfilled ambitions because I don't have any ambitions. I've never been that kind of performer.
John Hurt
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As Beckett said, it's not enough to die, one has to be forgotten as well.
John Hurt
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You have to learn to cut your cloth accordingly. But it seems to be a human weakness. Once you start making a lot of money, you just join in with everyone else. It's like the banks, and we've seen what happens there.
John Hurt
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The common misconception is that we create films for ourselves. And I really don't do it for myself. I get stopped in the street by people saying, Do you mind if I say this about your work? Do I mind? I'm delighted. I do it for you. It's not for me. It's my living, yes, sure.
John Hurt
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I was keen on sports-that's how my nose got this way. It's not actually broken the nose was just pushed up a little bit and moved over. It's an aquiline nose, quite Irish.
John Hurt
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I've got plenty of train memories. I was sent to school when I was eight years old in 1948 in Kent. So I had to go through London in 1948, just after the war. Many ,many strange experiences.
John Hurt
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[Bong Joon-ho'] is quite different but technically, he is as clever as [Alfred] Hitchcock. That's saying something. In humanitarian terms, I think he is much cleverer. He is one of the best directors I've worked with. I absolutely adore working with him.
John Hurt
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My fathers a clergyman, and he was in the mission field for a certain amount of time in British Honduras, which is now Belize.
John Hurt
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If it's a low-brow bawdy comedy, it's got to stand the chance of succeeding as such. If it's an intellectual piece, a drama, and so forth. And of course, once you've determined the level of the piece, do it the best you know how. And then don't make concessions. To audiences, or to pursestrings, or whatever.
John Hurt
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I find it difficult to say, like which child do you prefer the most, and its a sort of surface choice. I've never known how to quite answer that one adequately.
John Hurt
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If you put on an Oscar Wilde [play], it will interest those who are interested in Oscar Wilde. But it won't interest anybody else, because they won't get that wit.
John Hurt
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I find myself more interested in producing. Not because I'm interested in the financial side of it, but just getting together the right elements to make a film, that side of production. I would not be good on the financial side. It would be a disaster from the beginning.
John Hurt
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Nudes are the greatest to paint. Everything you can find in a landscape or a still life or anything else is there: darkness and light, character dimension, texture. I painted heads too, of course.
John Hurt
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I turn up in Los Angeles every now and then, so I can get some big money films in order to finance my smaller money films.
John Hurt
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When you're really working well with a director then you can be as outrageous as you like and so can he. And there's no worry about it.
John Hurt
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It's quite a dangerous career move to go wilfully on making films that may not find a distributor.
John Hurt