Latest John Hurt Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• You carry that through and adapt it to a camera lens, but you're quite right, you cannot be sure of what an audience is going to do. You don't know what's going to happen to the piece you're doing anyway. You don't know how it's going to be edited. There are a lot more unknowns in cinema. But that you have to readily accept. That's when, I think, you have to forget about intellect, to a degree. Intuition is very important when you're working with a lens, I believe, for what the lens is doing, too.

  John Hurt

  Believe, Thinking, Intuition

  Source: film.avclub.com

• 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

  People, Mind, Common

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I think one of the things that is important, for me, though a lot of people would disagree with me, is that you be founded in theater so that you understand what an audience is, what kind of an animal it is and how to play with it. How to have fun with it, how to sympathize with it, all the things that an audience is. I don't think you're going to find that out unless you do theater.

  John Hurt

  Fun, Thinking, Animal

  Source: film.avclub.com

• The truth is rarely true and never simple.

  John Hurt

  Simple, Truth Is

  Source: film.avclub.com

• 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

  Together, Financial, Film

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I think an actor is very like a sportsman. You have periods where you're in terrific form. Everything you touch seems to work, and come right. And other times, when you're working really hard, it's okay, but it isn't scintillating.

  John Hurt

  Thinking, Okay

  Source: film.avclub.com

• There is always a better choice that you were unable to quite touch with a single stroke. Even in acting, there comes a point, like a painting, where you have to say, "That's it. I can't go any further with it." And sometimes, you say, "I'm really pleased that that's where it's finished up." Other times, you think, "I don't think I really quite got there, but I haven't got time to go any further." Rather reluctantly, you have to say "That's it."

  John Hurt

  Thinking, Choices, Acting

  Source: film.avclub.com

• A mathematician either has a feeling for equations and an understanding and delight in it, not only in the purity of it, but in its beauty as well. I don't think that's something that you learn at school. I think you can get better in mathematics on a school level, but when you're talking about being a mathematician, I think that's definitely a gift of genes or whatever, you know? Whatever your pool is.

  John Hurt

  School, Thinking, Feelings

  Source: film.avclub.com

• Film has changed vastly in the time that I've been an actor, and it's, I think, very much for the better. I think there are just magnificent films now, and they're blossoming in the way that the novel did years ago.

  John Hurt

  Thinking, Film, Changed

  Source: film.avclub.com

• Acting is an imaginative leap, really, isn't it? And imaginations prosper in different circumstances. And it's being able - I can't tell you how one does, but one tries to read those circumstances correctly.

  John Hurt

  Imagination, Trying, Acting

  Source: film.avclub.com

• In the end, the game is the same. Football is still football. Now, they may play with different formations, they may have a different idea of training, but the game doesn't alter. I don't mind how any performer - indeed, why should I? How arrogant of me if I did? - manages to get to what they have to get to. It doesn't matter how you get there, as long as it isn't going to destroy other people on the way.

  John Hurt

  Football, Long, People

  Source: film.avclub.com

• Very, very broadly speaking, you can put directors into two areas: One for whom you work, and the other with whom you work. And I prefer the latter, for obvious reasons. It's a great relief to feel that you're working with someone rather than for someone. You don't feel that you're being tested, as it were.

  John Hurt

  Reason, Obvious

  Source: film.avclub.com

• Developing characters is a collective process, on one hand; it's an individual process on the other. The truth is rarely pure and never simple, as dear Oscar Wilde would say. A great of it, of course, is, you collect as much information as you can and then you put it into the mulberry of your mind and hope that you come up with a decent wine. Sometimes you do; sometimes you don't.

  John Hurt

  Wine, Character, Simple

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I'm not interested in awards. I never have been. I don't think they are important. Don't get me wrong, if somebody gives me a prize, I thank them as gratefully as I know how, because it's very nice to be given a prize. But I don't think that awards ought to be sought. It encourages our business to be competitive in absolutely the wrong way. We're not sportsmen; we're not trying to come in first.

  John Hurt

  Nice, Thinking, Giving

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I'm not accustomed to doing films without seeing the script. There are certain people that are auteurs, and you accept them regardless of whether you see a script or not. But Spielberg is not an auteur.

  John Hurt

  People, Film, Accepting

  Source: film.avclub.com

• There are certain people that when they ask you to do a film, you just say, "Where and when?"

  John Hurt

  People, Film

  Source: film.avclub.com

• Once you've started to dig a hole, you can't get out of it.

  John Hurt

  Source: film.avclub.com

• By the very nature of being a clergyman's son, people tend to put you slightly apart, which is - you tend to live a life, at some stages, as being - people being suspicious of you and puts you rather on a - I don't mean lonely, particularly. But it does tend to put you apart.

  John Hurt

  Lonely, Mean, Son

  Source: www.npr.org

• 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

  Character, Hollywood, Tradition

  Source: www.npr.org

• People are not what they seem to be according to their looks.

  John Hurt

  People, Looks, Seems

  Source: www.npr.org

• I certainly don't see myself as Caligula.

  John Hurt

  Source: www.npr.org

• 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

  Play, Oscars, Wilde

  Source: www.themarysue.com

• We all have our limitations.

  John Hurt

  Limitation

  Source: www.themarysue.com

• I do what interests me when I'm invited and do it as well as I know how and try to get better. That's all.

  John Hurt

  Trying, Get Better, Interest

  Source: www.npr.org

• I felt, you know, body and soul, as it were. But, of course, I mean, I - at that age, I didn't think in terms of being professional. I didn't know anything about it. That happened later.

  John Hurt

  Mean, Thinking, Soul

  Source: www.npr.org