Although you have some films that are a real bummer, there’s always a film that comes up where it’s just heaven.

I’m still tap dancing. I’m still going.

Unless I try, I’m never really going to be at ease with myself.

As a boy I believed I could make myself invisible. I’m not sure that I ever could, but I certainly had the ability to pass unnoticed.

I’ve been doing Tai Chi on and off for 20 years. The fundamentals of all martial arts are the same.

What I wanted more than anything was a long career.

At this point, it’s either for fun or it’s for money. I don’t take movies that I don’t really like.

I’ve never wanted to become a politician, an interior decorator, I’ve never wanted to speculate and make a load of money. I just wanted this.

The very first film I ever saw was during the war. My mother took me, I must have been about 4, and that was Beau Geste, with Gary Cooper.

From the very first movie I ever made to the current time, there have been times between action and cut when I’ve sensed some kind of new dimension that I haven’t been familiar with before.

In my youth I dreamed of being an illustrator.

I’m very pleased with myself. I did The Collector immediately after Billy Budd, because I thought, Well, I’ll let everybody know: This is my range.

He’s Soderbergh, we’re working for him. It doesn’t matter what he’s doing; we’ll see it at the premiere.

In the case of Elektra I really wasn’t sure I could pull it off. There were so many intellectual leaps. My character, Stick, is blind, but he can see better than most people. So I...

When I tested for Billy Budd, I had that kind of confidence that comes with the certainty that you’re not going to get something. I was very rough around the edges.

I have always had this energy, which I think of as overdrive.

It wasn’t until I saw James Dean that I began to think that maybe I could actually do this. Movies didn’t have to be just this fantasy with this impossibly handsome guy.

With Fellini, the fear dropped out of my work because it was such a happy experience… hanging out with Fellini, having pasta on the set with Fellini, and going out with Fellini!

I have to be stretched in some way. There’s not enough things that come my way that I fancy.

It’s such a performance to bring stuff into America. It’s a great luxury when I am in England.

A lot of newspapers say, Terence Stamp is playing himself and we’re as bored as he is.

I have to know what would’ve happened if I tried to get into show business. The last thing I was expecting was to have the kind of career I’ve had.

My favorite film is Gene Tierney and Tyrone Power in The Razor’s Edge.

A lot of people only see me as villains.

I was very disappointed that so much of the work I did on The Haunted Mansion didn’t arrive in the final cut.

Peter Ustinov was the first really positive influence in my career. He was real and he bore witness to it. The things he said to you, he lived them.

A lot of young directors, they’re not confident; they’re not open to the emotional level of the scene.

I wasn’t at all sure I could make that sort of leap into that sort of comic book reality.

Physically, I couldn’t fold myself into a gray, invisible bank clerk. I just thought, It’s the most amazing part. It’s a pity that I’m wrong for it.

All actors are incredibly insecure.

I work primarily for the camera-it’s not something I really talk about a lot, but it’s part of the way I am as a movie actor. The camera is my girl, as it were.

To work with a guy like Wyler early in your career was just an incredible thing, because he gave me an amazing amount of confidence.