Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Performers
Basically
British
Tradition
Hollywood
Shall
Character
Take
Performer

More quotes by John Hurt

Image
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
Image
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
Image
Lotte Lenya was all emotion. She wasn't anything but emotion. She was not an intellectual.
John Hurt
Image
My springboard is always the script. Even if the script is taken from a novel, I often haven't read the novel...
John Hurt
Image
The clergy is in the same business as actors, just a different department.
John Hurt
Image
[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
Image
Films don't take as long as people think. 'Harry Potter,' people always used to say, 'Well, my God, do you ever get any time to yourself?' I think I did, in 'Harry Potter,' over a 12 year period I did five days. So it's not exactly exhausting.
John Hurt
Image
I'm besotted by [Kirsten Dunst] now. I think she's just wonderful. I can't think for a second that however much she'd worked in America, she would never have had the chance to play [a role in Lars Von Trier's 'Melancholia' ] like that. You have to get outside of the States to do something like that.
John Hurt
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Life is full of ironies and paradoxes.
John Hurt
Image
I think it would be very difficult to play somebody if they didn't think they had any virtues or redeeming characteristics.
John Hurt
Image
Anything which retains interest is optimistic. When the characters become disinterested, it's pessimistic. Does that make sense?
John Hurt
Image
I never quite understand why we watch the news. There doesn't really seem much point watching somebody tell you what the news is when you could quite easily listen to it on the radio...
John Hurt
Image
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
Image
You can see areas where maybe you got a bit lazy, perhaps, or you see when you were really on form. I think an actor is very like a sportsman in that respect. You have periods where you're in terrific form.
John Hurt
Image
I never had any ambition to be a star, or whatever it is called, and I'm still embarrassed at the word.
John Hurt
Image
By the time I came to do the final ones [Harry Potter's film], I was working on something that was massively successful. There was a huge difference in indulgence and all sorts of stuff. A very big difference in peoples' attitudes. They were very pleased with themselves. In human terms, it was quite interesting to see the difference.
John Hurt
Image
I'm very director oriented.
John Hurt
Image
We shot ['Sailcloth'] five days down in Cornwall, and you couldn't have asked for a more beautiful place. It was a couple of tough days at sea, but when I say tough it was still enjoyable.
John Hurt