Udo Kier

“The first day of shooting came, and of course I was nervous. I would lie if I said I wasn't impressed. I mean, Lars von Trier hiring me to be the king in 'Medea'... Lars said, 'Stop! Stop!' And I was so nervous, I turned around and said, 'What is it?' He said, '... Just be a tired king.'”

“I bought a former library, not because I have a lot of books, but also I like architecture, and it was built in 1965, and I like gardening.”

“Werner Herzog, I knew him for so many years, when Fassbinder was at his highest moment. But we had a rule: An actor from Fassbinder could never work with an actor of Werner Herzog or Wim Wenders. Because if we would have done that, we would have been spies. 'Ah, you worked with Werner - how was it? How did he direct you?' I was Fassbinder's actor.”

“Sometimes I get a script that says, 'Only you can play it.' But I like roles in films with little moments - a hand movement in 'Melancholia.' I don't like the big speeches - the 'Oscar speech.' I like to do unusual things on screen.”

“You know, I don't want to waste my time by being in a movie where nobody remembers my part. That's not interesting at all!”

“It's logical when you become known to the industry with 'Dracula' and 'Frankenstein' that they typecast you and want you in their horror movies. That's how I got 'Blade,' of course, because they were fans.”

“I don't consider myself funny.”

“People often say to me, especially people from the press: 'Oh, you are so evil.' But I'm a gardener. I rescue animals in Palm Springs where I live.”

“I made so many films I thought were great and they turned out horrible, and I made films I did not believe in at all, and 'Shadow Of The Vampire' was one of these films I did not believe in during the shooting. And then when I saw it I was surprised what they had made out of it. They edited for quite a long time.”

“I never wanted to be an actor. I just wanted to learn languages and travel and see the world.”

“I made films, like 'Shadow of the Vampire,' and I did not like the work I did on it and then Willem Dafoe was nominated for the Oscar. I made films like 'The Adventures of Pinocchio' with Martin Landau. I thought I would get nominated and it flopped. You never know.”

“I'm drawn to people who are free in their way of making films.”

“I like to work with directors where you feel they make the movies not for the audience, but make them for themselves. They don't care if it's a success financially. That's what I like.”

“My agent is a vampire, my lawyer is a vampire, they're all vampires, but they don't suck your blood, they take your money! Vampires are everywhere. It just depends what they're running after.”

“Gus van Sant I met at the Berlin film festival, and he came up to me. He had a little film in the festival called 'Mala Noche' that he had made for $20,000. He said: 'You are one of my favourite actors. I'm doing 'My Own Private Idaho' with River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves. You should be in it!' Then I started working with Gus.”

“When I'm depressed and the weather is bad I look up my page on IMDb and I have my coffee and feel better. There are even films on there I don't know about!”

“I have a ranch and when I sit there and see a little lizard and birds, I really love what I see and I'm love with nature.”

“In 'House of Boys,' I wanted to be in drag. It was amazing to be in the middle of all these drag queens. They did my makeup. I hardly recognized myself! That was very funny.”

“Until I was 16 or 17, we had no water. My mother had to cook water in a kettle, and once a week I was bathed, and that was it.”

“Sometimes, you can also have a big impact in a film just by doing something unexpected.”