A biography for Martin Landauhasn’t been written yet.
“Sergio Leone came to see me when I was doing 'Mission Impossible.' He wanted me to do 'A Fistful of Dollars.' I turned him down. I didn't want to get stuck as a stoic Western movie star.”
“'North by Northwest' took two and a half to three months to film. When I look back, I realise I wasn't intimidated by Hitchcock and Cary Grant. They were so accepting of me.”
“The real good comedians, like Chaplin, would make you laugh and a second later, cry.”
“I was very thin, exceedingly thin. If you look at 'North By Northwest,' you'll get a clue.”
“I always treat each take as a rehearsal for the next take. That way you can find stuff and keep adding and playing until they tell me to stop.”
“Of course, I remember the Disney 'Pinocchio.' I was a little kid then... It was very instructive. Little boys who don't behave wind up in lots of trouble.”
“People think I'm a very serious actor, which I am. But you know, if you don't have a sense of humor doing what I do, you perish.”
“I've got two daughters, and it's impossible for me to say one of them is a favorite.”
“I was being groomed to be the theatrical caricaturist. And I know if I got that job, I'd never quit. So I quit. I knew I wanted to go into the theater... I wanted to act.”
“I create each character as an individual, coming from a certain place, sounding a certain way, having been introduced to things a certain way.”
“Bad actors try to cry, and good actors try not to. Bad actors try to laugh, and good actors try not to.”
“An actor knows much more about a character than the character knows about himself.”
“I trained as an actor with Lee Strasberg, Elia Kazan, and Harold Clurman, and those guys set a very high bar.”
“I don't know anybody who's any good who isn't nuts.”
“I've got so many stories about every film and show I've ever been in.”
“The average scene in a film, you have to shoot it 15, 20 times. That means you got to laugh or cry 15, 20 times.”
“Pictures are packaged and cast by agents.”
“I look for roles where there is some kind of an arc to the story.”
“I'm very proud of Space 1999. Its success paved the way for other sci-fi shows to follow. My hope is that the DVD release will help it reach a new generation of fans.”
“I run the Actor's Studio on the West Coast, and one of the things I say all the time to the people I teach - many of whom are acting teachers - is that an actor needs to make choices that make him present.”