John Hurt
John Hurt
Sir John Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor whose career has spanned six decades. He initially came to prominence for his supporting role as Richard Rich in the film A Man for All Seasons. Since then he has played leading roles as Quentin Crisp in the film The Naked Civil Servant, John Merrick in David Lynch's biopic The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in the dystopian drama Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in the Stephen Frears drama The Hit, and Stephen...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionActor
Date of Birth22 January 1940
irony life-is paradox
Life is full of ironies and paradoxes.
thinking lazy actors
You can see areas where maybe you got a bit lazy, perhaps, or you see when you were really on form. I think an actor is very like a sportsman in that respect. You have periods where you're in terrific form.
tunnels light realizing
Also the wonderful thing about film, you can see light at the end of the tunnel. You did realize that it is going to come to an end at some stage.
ifs
If you listen, you learn; if you talk, you don't.
character light darkness
Nudes are the greatest to paint. Everything you can find in a landscape or a still life or anything else is there: darkness and light, character dimension, texture. I painted heads too, of course.
business people performers
It's an immensely competitive business, and I can tell you the older you get, the parts are fewer, and the people who are proven performers are greater.
moral redefining immoral
Society is constantly recalibrating, redefining what it considers to be moral and immoral.
imagination trying acting
Acting is an imaginative leap, really. And imaginations prosper in different circumstances. And it's being able - I can't tell you how one does, but one tries to read those circumstances correctly.
father fields honduras
My fathers a clergyman, and he was in the mission field for a certain amount of time in British Honduras, which is now Belize.
actors different clergy
The clergy is in the same business as actors, just a different department.
jobs self giving
The most difficult thing about painting is the self-discipline. When I finish a job, I give myself a few days, but then I have to discipline myself quite fiercely if I want to do some painting that's worthwhile. Otherwise, you're just doodling. It's much easier when you're just told what you have to do.
fashion thinking interesting
I think it's interesting to see how things come into and go out of fashion.
confusion
I don't like no confusion.
real school catholic
I first decided that I wanted to act when I was 9. And I was at a very bizarre prep school at the time, to say high Anglo-Catholic would be a real English understatement.