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.

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.

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.

Filming is repetition and many takes.

Bergman has a very special eye for people. His background taught him to listen and to feel.

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.

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.

Only very rarely are foreigners or first-generation immigrants allowed to be nice people in American films. Those with an accent are bad guys.

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 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.

I accept a role only if it's something I really, really like.

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.

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 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.

The offers I get are for grandfathers, uncles - and they often die very quickly in the script.

All my life I've been looking for diversity.

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.

Perhaps I scare people. I don't know why.

A vacation spot out of season always has a very special magic.

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'm getting too old to play some parts, but I'm still greedy.

I think English is a fantastic, rich and musical language, but of course your mother tongue is the most important for an actor.

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.

If Jesus came back today, and saw what was going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up.

I've never been in a barroom brawl in my life. I just don't do such things.

In this country, you have movie actors and theatre actors and television actors.

In Hollywood they usually cast me as villains or priests.

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.

The more I had to act like a saint, the more I felt like being a sinner.

Spielberg knows his craft so well, he can also improvise, and that is a lot of fun.

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.

All of us, we deserve to survive.

Awards are lovely and always welcome.

Bergman was courageous in choosing people to do things that they themselves might not expect to play.

Between you and me, odd things happen always on set.

During my military service, I performed a sketch in which I played a flea called Max. So when critics kept misspelling my name, I decided to change it and thought, 'Ah! Max!'

Film acting, if you don't play the lead, you come, and you do your scenes in a few days, and you act with a couple of colleagues. All the rest of the actors you never see, and you don't even meet many of them. And you don't know what will happen with what you've done. Maybe it will be in the film, maybe it will not.

Film work can be very interesting, but it also can be awfully boring because who creates the film? The actors? No. It is the director. It's his piece of work.

France is, for me, the country of happiness.

Hiroshima has become a metaphor not just for nuclear war but for war and destruction and violence toward civilians. It's not just the idea we should not use nuclear arms. We should not start another war because it's madness.

Human beings are human beings whether they speak or not.

I admired Stephen Daldry very much; I think he's a brilliant director, and also, I feel close to him because he has a lot of theater behind him. He's also a man of great imagination and a lovely sense of humor.

I could never learn to be totally fluent in any other language.

I don't have a philosophy for choosing roles. Sometimes, it's just, 'This might be interesting; that might be fun to do.' There might be interesting actors or directors in the project, even if the part is not important. And then sometimes, you need the money.

I owe Mr. Bergman so much.

I think it's good that we're sometimes reminded of important events in history.

I think the film you hear about the most is 'The Exorcist.' When people come up to me and say, 'Oh, you scared me!' I was the good guy in that film!