- There are too many prima donnas in this business and not enough action.
- I'm not interested in reputation or immortality or things like that...I don't care what I'm remembered for. I don't care if I'm remembered. I don't care if I'm not remembered. I don't care why I'm remembered. I genuinely don't care.
- No one gave me anything. I fought TB, I fought the devil. But I made people laugh. I don't want immortality. I've lived it all. I've done it all.
- No one trusts me any more. I spent half the movie [Maigret (1988) (TV)] arguing with people and I was accused of causing big on-set rows. But what they won't tell you is I fought for [author Georges Simenon]. I fought for the maintenance of quality. I don't believe in lying down on the job. I've seen these so-called "nice" actors. Very able fellows like Ian McKellen and Kenneth Branagh. But they're like bank managers. So sweet and careful. Who needs them? We are suffering a plague of good taste. Give me Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke any day. They project danger. That's what makes acting - and life - interesting.
- [his response to hearing he had been Oscar nominated for This Sporting Life (1963)] I've struck a blow for the Irish rebellion!
- I would give up all the accolades - people have occasionally written and said nice things - of my showbiz career to play just once for the senior Munster team. I will never win an Oscar now, but even if I did I would swap it instantly for one sip of champagne from the Heineken Cup.
- Someone asked me once "What is the difference between Tom Cruise now and you when you were a major star?" I said there is a great difference. Look at a photograph of me from the old days and I'm going to one of my film premieres with a bottle of vodka in my hand. Tom Cruise has a bottle of Evian water. That's the difference - a bottle of Evian water.
- What I hate about our business today is the elitism. So-called stars ride in private jets and have bodyguards and dietitians and beauticians. Tom Cruise is a midget and he has eight bodyguards all 6 feet 10, which makes him even more diminutive. It's an absolute joke.
- I can see the difficulties of making a movie. Directors and producers have to put up with a lot of rubbish from temperamental actors.
- [on his Major Dundee (1965) co-star Charlton Heston'] Heston's the only man who could drop out of a cubic moon, he's so square. The trouble with him is he doesn't think he's a hired actor, like the rest of us. He thinks he's the entire production. He used to sit there in the mornings and clock us with a stopwatch.
- [upon being carried out on a stretcher from the Savoy Hotel, to people entering the hotel] It was the food!
- I was a sinner. I slugged some people. I hurt many people. And it's true, I never looked back to see the casualties.
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