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
drama school might
I left drama school and went straight into a 10-week film for which I was paid $75 I might say, which for 1962 was one heck of a lot of money.
thinking flames feelings
I think you can fan the flames, but I think in the same way that a mathematician is a mathematician - He's not taught to be a mathematician. He either has a feeling for equations and an understanding and delight in it, not only in the purity of it, but in its beauty as well.
worry directors no-worries
When you're really working well with a director then you can be as outrageous as you like and so can he. And there's no worry about it.
thinking people arrogance
Obviously, the arrogance of my own nature in regards to other people's work would suggest that I think I'm talented.
taken scripts novel
My springboard is always the script. Even if the script is taken from a novel, I often haven't read the novel... .
school thinking talking
I think you can get better in mathematics on a school level, but when you're talking about being a mathematician, I think that's definitely a gift of genes or whatever.
sports broken noses
I was keen on sports-that's how my nose got this way. It's not actually broken; the nose was just pushed up a little bit and moved over. It's an aquiline nose, quite Irish.
thinking play would-be
I think it would be very difficult to play somebody if they didn't think they had any virtues or redeeming characteristics.
mind theatre cinema
If I'm in theatre, cinema doesn't even cross my mind. Similarly when I'm making a film, theatre doesn't cross my mind.
order film finance
I turn up in Los Angeles every now and then, so I can get some big money films in order to finance my smaller money films.
radio never-quit watches
I never quite understand why we watch the news. There doesn't really seem much point watching somebody tell you what the news is when you could quite easily listen to it on the radio.
memories film favourite
I have lots of favourite memories but I can't say that I have a favourite film.
trying scripts peculiar
I mark a script like an exam, and I try not to do anything under 50 per cent. Similarly with the part. And also film is a peculiar thing, parts don't necessarily read in script form anything like as well as they can do when it comes to materialising.
order play sick
I am not an enormous believer in research being the be-all and end-all. I get suspicious when I read about actors spending six months in a clinic, say, in order to play someone who is sick.