Quotes by Max Sydow

• Only very rarely are foreigners or first-generation immigrants allowed to be nice people in American films. Those with an accent are bad guys.
• 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.
• Producers are not gamblers. They want a good return on their investment.
• 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.
• 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.
• Spielberg knows his craft so well, he can also improvise, and that is a lot of fun.
• The offers I get are for grandfathers, uncles - and they often die very quickly in the script.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• In this country, you have movie actors and theatre actors and television actors.
• 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.
• 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.
• All my life I've been looking for diversity.
• Perhaps I scare people. I don't know why.
• In Hollywood they usually cast me as villains or priests.
• Bergman has a very special eye for people. His background taught him to listen and to feel.
• A vacation spot out of season always has a very special magic.
• If Jesus came back today, and saw what was going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up.
• Filming is repetition and many takes.
• 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 just feel I shouldn't work too much, because there are so many other things to do.
• 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'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 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've never been in a barroom brawl in my life. I just don't do such things.
• 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.