A vacation spot out of season always has a very special magic.
Airplanes, both Allied and German, flew over and frequently were hit and went down. I was involved in one of these crashes. An American plane, a Flying Fortress, came down in flames, and the crew jumped.
All my life I've been looking for diversity.
Bergman has a very special eye for people. His background taught him to listen and to feel.
Bergman has insight into life, marvelous storytelling, solid knowledge into the mechanisms of film and stage.
Bergman wanted to introduce a circus family into the cast which one of Picasso's paintings had inspired, and he wanted me to play the head of the family.
During the war I didn't read the papers closely, yet I lived in the extreme south of Sweden, quite close to Denmark, and Jews would come over as refugees. I had friends in Denmark, relatives.
Filming is repetition and many takes.
Growing up in the 1930's was like 100 years before. There was a feudalism system that lasted until the early 40's. Life changed only after the war.
I accept a role only if it's something I really, really like.
I began imagining scenes in public which some drunk would come up to me and slap me in the face. Nothing like that ever happened, but I often wonder if I would have turned the other cheek.
I don't believe in devils. Indifference and misunderstandings can create evil situations. Most of the time, people who appear to be evil are really victims of evil deeds.
I don't get leading parts any more, which is natural because the audience is young, and they are not interested in guys like me.
I had a summer job at age 13 at a Forestry school. All the students were on vacation, so I helped make up the fire brigade to put out the flames.
I haven't read all of Bergman's screenplays, but I've been involved in so many of them-I think this is his best screenplay, to my tastes.
I just feel I shouldn't work too much, because there are so many other things to do.
I read 25 pages of the screenplay, and I knew I was going to do it.
I remember those days with Bergman with great nostalgia. We were aware that the films were going to be quite important, and the work felt meaningful.
I think English is a fantastic, rich and musical language, but of course your mother tongue is the most important for an actor.
I think my parts in The Face and The Seventh Seal are related.
I was forbidden to speak to reporters. It was part of my contract.
I'd like to do more theatre, and Sweden is where I should be.
I'm getting too old to play some parts, but I'm still greedy.
I'm not in retirement. I just don't want to work so much, and I don't get that many offers any more.
I'm trying to arrange my life now in such a way that every second year I work in films, and every second year I'm in theatre.
I've done comedy in Swedish films and a lot on the stage, but not in international films.
I've never been in a barroom brawl in my life. I just don't do such things.
If I don't play some of the parts that take a lot of physical energy, they won't be there next year. My theory is to always look for the challenge.
If Jesus came back today, and saw what was going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up.
If you are a person of great charisma, as Bergman is, people demand from him a lot of things which he probably doesn't have. That is a terribly frustrating situation.
If you want to tell the story of Christ, you must have a vision. I had a vision of Christ as a man plagued by self-doubt, but I was not allowed to tell my vision. It was a Sunday school Jesus.
In a theater, the part is mine and I can control it as I want to. In the movies, I don't have direct contact, and I am fighting technical machinery.
In Hollywood they usually cast me as villains or priests.
In the cemetery in my hometown are all these markers with strange and exotic names.
In the novel he comes from the south of Sweden and speaks a dialect I was brought up with, which you Americans cannot hear.
In this country, you have movie actors and theatre actors and television actors.
Ingmar did two or three productions during the winter, wrote a screenplay and directed it in the summer. Most of the time he used the same actors in his films as in the theatre.
It's good if the director knows you and his cast very well because he then knows their potential.
It's important to me to work in my own language now and then. I love English, but you can never learn to master a foreign language if you're not brought up with it.
Movies give me an opportunity to go places. I'm not only a Swede but an American, not just a man of my time, but I've been living 2,000 years ago-and not just in a new country, America, but in the Holy Land, too.
My character... if he's not the devil, he's certainly a very close relative.
My very first film in this country was The Greatest Story Ever Told.
Only very rarely are foreigners or first-generation immigrants allowed to be nice people in American films. Those with an accent are bad guys.
Pele is one of the richest parts I've ever been offered. There are so many varieties of emotion and reaction. It's rare that you have a part that has so much.
Pelle grows up to be a labor leader. The politics don't come out 'till much later.
Perhaps I scare people. I don't know why.
Playing Christ, I began to feel shut away from the world. A newspaper became one of my biggest luxuries. I noticed that some of my close friends began treating me with reverence.
Playing the role of Christ was like being in a prison. It was the hardest part I've ever had to play in my life. I couldn't smoke or drink in public. I couldn't.
Producers are not gamblers. They want a good return on their investment.
Spielberg knows his craft so well, he can also improvise, and that is a lot of fun.
Sweden is a small country. We don't really have a star system. We are brought up in a repertory system, where the important thing is to be tied to a municipal theatre, or with the national theatre.
The Face is in many ways a parable on the artist's life. I see it very much as a story about somebody who appears as something, but in whom the audience put all kinds of things that he doesn't have. And he suffers from this.
The hell I went through in The Greatest Story-I had no relief when I was playing Christ. I had to grow a beard. I hated it.
The idea of working with Steven Spielberg was very attractive. He's such a master. He knows the language of the camera and of filmmaking, which gives him a great freedom.
The more I had to act like a saint, the more I felt like being a sinner.
The most difficult part of playing Christ was that I had to keep up the image around the clock. As soon as the picture finished, I returned home to Sweden and tried to find my old self. It took six months to get back to normal.
The offers I get are for grandfathers, uncles - and they often die very quickly in the script.
The studio kept pretty close tabs on me. I began to think I had my own Hollywood Judas following me around, waiting for me to make a slip, to violate my contract.
The studio rented a house for my wife in Los Angeles under a phony name to keep reporters away. Whenever I wanted to visit her and my children, I would have to sneak in the back door after dark.
There are those who want to believe but can't, and there are those who believe as children and it's no problem for them at all.
Things are very different in Europe. When I work there, I know it will always be dubbed into many languages, so I will not appear to have an accent. If I make a film in Italy, I will come out speaking fluent Italian.
We learned the prisoners' national anthems, and when we knew who was that day's audience, we would perform it-what a tremendous reaction!
When I finished the role of Christ, I felt as though I'd been let out on parole. A man who has served 18 months isn't eager to go back to prison.
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