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
relief feels tested
It's a great relief to feel that you're working with someone rather than for someone. You don't feel that you're being tested, as it were.
ambition would-be kind
It would be difficult to have any unfulfilled ambitions because I don't have any ambitions. I've never been that kind of performer.
change years interviews
If you do an interview in 1960, something it's bound to change by the year 2000. And if it doesn't, then there's something drastically wrong.
perspective each-day progression
Each day, as you get older, there is a new perspective on life. It's a progression of some sort.
two directors reason
Very broadly speaking, you can put directors into two areas: One for whom you work, and the other with whom you work. And I prefer the latter, for obvious reasons.
moving careers may
It's quite a dangerous career move to go wilfully on making films that may not find a distributor.
crazy boys peculiar
I wanted to work with those boys (producers Andy and Larry Wachowski) because they're so eccentric and peculiar. Larry, of course, is halfway towards being a woman now. It's a crazy world.
essence games people
Pretending to be other people is my game and that to me is the essence of the whole business of acting.
wine mind information
You collect as much information as you can and then you put it into the mulberry of your mind and hope that you come up with a decent wine. Sometimes you do; sometimes you don't.
men intellectual racing
We are all racing towards death. No matter how many great, intellectual conclusions we draw during our lives, we know they're all only man-made, like God. I begin to wonder where it all leads. What can you do, except do what you can do as best you know how.
stars ambition embarrassed
I never had any ambition to be a star, or whatever it is called, and I'm still embarrassed at the word.
teacher children school
I loathed school. I don't have an academic mind, and besides I was so bored by my teachers! How teachers can take a child's inventiveness and say yes, yes, in that pontifical way of theirs, and smother everything!
cope john picture took trying
I think the director, John Huston, took on the picture because he's been trying to outdo his father, Walter Huston, and that's impossible. How do you cope with a genius? I couldn't communicate with my own father.
bit came enjoyed gets musical
I'm not really a big musical fan. I enjoyed 'West Side Story' when it came out, but it gets a bit tired in the end.