Otto Preminger

“I stopped acting when I was 19. The only time I acted again was during the war, when there were no other Nazis available.”

“I do not welcome advice from actors; they are here to act.”

“When I finish a film, I want to forget it. I never like to repeat myself. Maybe, when I am dead, they will find certain consistencies in the style of my films, but I never want one film to look like another.”

“When I was a young actor in Vienna, already my hair was falling out at a rapid rate. I went to a doctor, who said hair was like grass: if you mow it, then it grows back stronger. So I went to Brittany, where nobody knew me, and I shaved my head. When it grew back - only the fringes!”

“I never seek controversy or foresee it for my pictures. I take a personal stand, and perhaps because my films are on contemporary subjects, people do not share my point of view.”

“Directing Marilyn Monroe was like directing Lassie. You needed fourteen takes to get each one of them right.”

“I live in the present. When I finish a film, it is behind me. My reward is in my work, not in a lot of old memories.”

“Directing her was like directing Lassie. You need 14 takes to get each one of them right.”

“I can't talk about every single film I made. It's not my way to go back into the past and to look at my old pictures and to discuss them.”

“What counts isn't the frame, it's what you put in it.”